
dag -P&5-/6 9 

Book ■ i 'tS4» 



THE 



CHARLES PHILLIPS, ESQUIRE, 

DELIVERED AT THE 

BAR AND ON VARIOUS PUBLIC OCCASIONS, 

in 

IRELAND AND ENGLAND. 

EDITED BY HIMSELF. 
TO WHICH ARE ADDED, 

SEYEUAL SPEECHES, 

NEVER BEFORE PUBLISHED IN AMERICA : 

TOGETHER WITH AST 
CONTAINING 

THE LAST SPEECH OF ROBERT EMMETT, 



SARATOGA SPRINGS: . 
PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY G. M. DAVISON. 




1820, 



ISM 






THE 



FOLLOWING SPEECHES 



ARE, BY PERMISSION 



DEDICATED TO 



WZ&&1&M ROSSOS* 



TVI1H 



THE MOST SINCERE RESPECT 



AND AFFECTION 



OE THEIR 



V 



AUTHOR- 



CONTEXTS. 



Page 
Preface • • • 7 

Speech delivered at a public dinner given to Mr. Finlay by 
the Roman catholics of the town and county of Sligo ... 17 

Speech delivered at an aggregate meeting of the Roman ca- 
tholics of Cork 33 

Speech delivered at a dinner given on Dinas Island, in the 
Lake of Killarney, on Mr. Phillips' health being given, to- 
gether witj^that of Mr. Payne, a young American 49 

Speech delivered at an aggregate meeting of the Roman ca- 
tholics of the county and city of Dublin 56 

Petition referred to in the preceding speech, drawn by Mr. 
Phillips at the request of the Roman catholics of Ireland 78 

The address to H. R. H. the princess of Wales, drawn by 
Mr. Phillips at the request of the Roman catholics of Ire- 
land 81 

Speech delivered by Mr. Phillips at a public dinner given to 
him by the friends of civil and reRgious liberty in Liverpool 83 

Speech of Mr. Phillips in the case of Guthrie v. Sterne, 
delivered in the court of common pleas, Dublin 97 

Speech of Mr. Phillips in the case of O'Mullan v. M'Korkill, 
delivered at the county court-house, Galway 121 

Speech in the case of Connaughton v. Dillon, delivered in 
the county court-house of Roscommon 145 



VI CONTENTS. 

Page 
Speech of Mr. Phillips in the case of Creighton v. Townsend, 
delivered in the court of common pleas, Dublin 160 

Speech in the case of Blake v. Wilkins, delivered in the 
county court-house, Galway 176 

A character of Napoleon Buonaparte, down to the period 
of his exile to Elba 195 

Speech in the case of Brown v. Blake 200 

Speech in the case of Fitzgerald v. Kerr 221 

Address of Mr. Phillips to the electors of the county of 
Sligo, on declining the poll 241 

Speech of Mr. Phillips at a public dinner given to Ge- 
neral Devereux, at Dublin 250 

Speech of Mr. Phillips, delivered at Cheltenham, (England) 
at the fourth anniversary of the Gloucester Missiona- 
ry Society ^ • •« • • • 254 

Speech of Mr. Phillip?, delivered before the British and 
Foreign Auxiliary Bible Society 260 

Appendix 268 



PREFACE 



TO THE FIRST EDITION. 



(BY JOHN FINLAY, ESQ.) 



The speeches of Phillips are now, for the first 
time, offered to the world in an authentic form, 
So far as his exertions have been hitherto develop- 
ed, his admirers, and they are innumerable, must 
admit, that the text of this volume, is an acknowl- 
edged reference, to which future criticism may 
fairly resort, and from which his friends must de- 
duce any title which the speaker may have created 
to the character of an orator. 

The interests of his reputation impose no ne- 
cessity of denying many of those imperfections 
tvhicH have been imputed to these productions. 
The value of all human exertion is comparative ; 
and positive excellence is but a nattering de- 
signation, even of the best products of industry 
and mind. 

There is, perhaps, but one way by which we 
could avoid all possible defects, and that is, by 



Vlll PREFACE. 

avoiding all possible exertion. The very fastidi- 
ous, and the very uncharitable, may too often be 
met with in the class of the indolent ; and the man 
of talent is generally most liberal in his censure r 
whose industry has given him least title to praise. 
Thus defects and detraction are as the spots and 
shadow which of necessity adhere and attach to 
every object of honourable toil. Were it possible 
for the friends of Mr. Phillips to select those de- 
fects which could fill up the measure of unavoid- 
able imperfection, and at the same time inflict 
least injury on his reputation, doubtless they would 
prefer the blemishes and errors natural to youth, 
consonant to genius, and consistent with an obvious 
and ready correction. To this description, we 
apprehend, may be reduced all the errprs that 
have been imputed through a system of wide- 
spread and unwearied criticism, animated by that 
envy with which indolence too oft regards the 
success of industry and talent, and subsidized 
by power in its struggle to repress the reputa- 
tion and importance of a rapidly rising young 
man, whom it had such good reason both to 
hate and fear. For it would be ignorance not 
to know, and knowing, it would be affectation 
to conceal, that his political principles were a 
drawback on his reputation; and that the dis- 
praise of these speeches has been a discounta- 
ble quantity for the promotion of placemen and 
the procurement of place. 

This system of depreciation thus powerfully 
wielded, even to the date of the present publica- 
tion, failed not in its energy, though it has in its 
object; nay more, it has succeeded in procuring 
for him the beneficial results of a multiplying re- 
action. To borrow the expression of an eminent 



PREFACE. IX 



classic, " the rays of their indignation collected 
upon him, served to illumine, but could not con- 
sume ;" and doubtless, this hostility may have 
promoted this fact, that the materials of this vo- 
lume are at this moment read in all the languages 
of Europe ; and whatever be the proportion of 
their merits to their faults, they are unlikely to es- 
cape the attention of posterity. 

The independent reader, whom this book may 
introduce to a first or more correct acquaintance 
with his eloquence, will therefore be disposed to 
protect his mind against these illiberal preposses- 
sions thus actively diffused, on the double consid- 
eration that some defects are essential to such 
and so much labour, and that some detraction 
may justly be accounted for by the motives of 
the system whose vices he exposed. The same 
reader, if he had not the opportunity of hear- 
ing these speeches delivered by the author, will 
make in his favour another deduction for a dif- 
ferent reason. 

The great father of ancient eloquence was ac- 
customed to say, that action was the first, and se- 
cond, and last quality of an orator. This was the 
dictum of a supreme authority ; it was an exagge- 
ration notwithstanding ; but the observation must 
contain much truth to permit such exaggera- 
tion ; and whilst we allow that delivery is not 
every thing, it will be allowed that it is much of 
the effect of oratory. 

Nature has been bountiful to the subject of these 
remarks in the useful accident of a prepossessing 
exterior ; an interesting figure, an animated coun- 
tenance, and a demeanour devoid of affectation, 
and distinguished by a modest self-possession, 
give him the favourable opinion of his audience. 
2 



X PREFACE. 

even before lie has addressed them. His eager, 
lively, and sparkling eye melts or kindles in pa- 
thos or indignation ; his voice, by its compass, 
sweetness, and variety, ever audible and sel- 
dom loud, never hurried, inarticulate, or indis- 
tinct, secures to his audience every word that 
he utters, and preserves him from the painful ap- 
pearance of effort. 

His memory is not less faithful in the convey- 
ance of his meaning, than his voice : unlike Fox in 
this respect, he never wants a word ; unlike Bushe, 
he never pretends to want one ; and unlike Grat- 
tan, he never either wants or recalls one. 

His delivery is freed from every thing fantastic — 
is simple and elegant, impressive and sincere ; and 
if we add the circumstance of his youth to his 
other external qualifications, none of his contem- 
poraries in this vocation can pretend to an equal 
combination of these accidental advantages. 

If, then, action be a great part of the effect of 
oratory, the reader who has not heard him is ex- 
cluded from that consideration, so important to a 
right opinion, and on which his excellence is un- 
questioned. 

The ablest and severest of all the critics who 
have assailed him, (we allude, of course, to the 
Edinburgh Review"), in their criticism on Gulhrie 
and Sterne, have paid him an involuntary and un- 
precedented compliment. He is the onlv individu- 
al in these countries to whom this literary work 
has devoted an entire article on a single speech ; 
and when it is recollected that the basis of this 
criticism was an unauthorized and incorrect pub- 
lication of a single forensic exertion in the ordina- 
ry routine of professional business, it is very 
questionable whether such a publication afford- 



PREFACE. XI 

ed a just and proportionate ground-work for so 
much general criticism, or a fair criterion of the 
alleged speaker's general merits. This criticism 
sums up its objections, and concludes its remarks, 
by the following commending observation — " that a 
more strict control over his fancy would constitute 
a remedy for his defects." 

Exuberance of fancy is certainly a defect, but it 
is evidence of an attribute essential to an orator. 
There are few men without some judgment, but 
there are many men without any imagination : the 
latter class never did, and never can produce an 
orator. Without imagination, the speaker sinks to 
the mere dry arguer, the matter-of-fact man, the 
calculator, or syllogist, or sophist; the dealer in 
figures; the compiler of facts; the mason, but not 
the architect of the pile : for the dictate of the im- 
agination is the inspiration of oratory, which im- 
parts to matter animation and soul. . 

Oratory is the great art of persuasion ; its pur- 
pose is to give, in a particular instance, a certain 
direction to human action. The faculties of the 
orator are judgment and imagination : and reason 
and eloquence, the product of these faculties, must 
work on the judgment and feelings of his audience 
for the attainment of his end. The speaker who 
addresses the judgment alone may be argumenta- 
tive, but never can be eloquent ; for argument in- 
structs without interesting, and eloquence interests 
without conviacing ; but oratory is neither; it is 
the compound of both ; it conjoins the feelings and 
opinions of men ; it speaks to the passions through 
the mind, and to the mind through the passions; 
and leads its audience to its just purpose by the 
combined and powerful agency of human reason 
and human feeling. The components of this com- 



Xll PREFACE. 

bination will vary, of course, in proportion to the 
number and sagacity of the auditory which the 
speaker addresses. With judges it is to be hoped 
that the passions will be weak : with public as- 
semblies it is to be hoped that reasoning will be 
strong ; but although the imagination may, in the 
first case, be unemployed, in the second it cannot 
be dispensed with ; for if the advocate of virtue 
avoids to address the feelings of a mixed assembly, 
whether it be a jury or a political meeting, he has 
no security that their feeling, and their bad feelings, 
may not be brought into action against him : he 
surrenders to his enemy the strongest of his wea- 
pons, and by a species of irrational generosity con- 
trives to ensure his own defeat in the conflict. To 
juries and public assemblies alone the following 
speeches have been addressed ; and it is by as- 
certaining their effect on these assemblies or ju- 
ries, that the merit of the exertion should in jus- 
tice be measured. 

But there seems a general and prevalent mis- 
take arnon^ our critics on this judgment. They 
seem to think that the taste of the individual is 
the standard by which the value of oratory should 
be decided. We do not consider oratory a mere 
matter of taste : it is a given means for the pro- 
curement of a given end ; and the fitness of its 
means to the atttainment of its end should be in 
chief the measure of its merit — of this fitness suc- 
cess ought to be evidence. The .preacher who 
can melt his congregation into tears, and excel 
others in his struggle to convert the superfluities 
of the opulent into a treasury for the wretched ; — 
the advocate who procures the largest compensa- 
tion from juries on their oaths, for injuries which 
they try ; — the man who, like Mr. Phillips, can be 



PREFACE. Xlll 

accused (if ever any man was so accused, except 
himself) by grave lawyers, and before grave judges, 
of having procured a verdict from twelve sagacious 
and most respectable special jurors by fascination ; 
of having, by the fascination of his eloquence, 
blinded them to that duty which they were sworn 
to observe : — the man who can be accused of this 
on oath, and the fascination of whose speaking 
is made a ground-work, though an unsuccessful 
one, for setting aside a verdict ; — he may be 
wrong and ignorant in his study and practice of 
oratory; but, with all his errors and ignorance, it 
must be admitted, that he has in some manner 
stumbled on the shortest way for attaining the 
end of oratory— -that is, giving the most forceful 
direction to human action and determination in 
particular instances. His eloquence may be a 
novelty, but it is beyond example successful ; and 
its success and novelty may be another explana- 
tion for the hostility that assails. It may be mat- 
ter of taste, but it certainly would not be matter 
of judgment or prudence in Mr. Phillips to depart 
from a course which has proved most successful, 
and which has procured for him within the last 
year a larger number of readers through the 
world than ever in the same time resorted to the 
productions of any man of these countries. His 
youth carries with it not only much excuse, but 
much promise of future improvement; and doubt- 
less he will not neglect to apply the fruits of study 
and the lights of experience to each succeeding 
exertion. But his manner is his own, and every 
man's own manner is his best manner ; and so long; 
as it works with this unexampled success, he 
should be slow to adopt the suggestions of his en- 
emies, although he should be sedulous in adopting 



XIV PREFACE. 

all legitimate improvement. To that very exube- 
rance of imagination, we do not hesitate to as- 
cribe much of his success ; whilst, therefore, he 
consents to control it, let him be careful lest he 
clips his wings : nor is the strength of this faculty 
an argument, although it has been made an argu- 
ment, against the strength of his reasoning powers ; 
for let us strip these speeches of every thing 
whose derivation could be, by any construction, 
assigned to his fancy ; let us apply this rule to his 
judicial and political exertions — for instance, to 
the speech on Guthrie and Sterne, and the late 
one to the gentlemen of Liverpool-^-let their 
topics be translated into plain, dull language, and 
then we would ask, what collection of topics could 
be more judicious, better arranged, or classed in a 
more lucid and consecutive order by the most 
tiresome wisdom of the sagest arguer at the bar ? 
Is there not abundance to satisfy the judgment, 
even if there were nothing to sway the feelings, or 
gratify the imagination ? How preposterous, then, 
the futile endeavour to undervalue the solidity of 
the ground-work, by withdrawing attention to the 
beauty of the ornament ; or to maintain the defi- 
ciency of strength in the base, merely because 
there appears so much splendour in the structure. 
Unaided by the advantages of fortune or alli- 
ance, under the frown of political power and the 
interested detraction of professional jealousy, con- 
fining the exercise of that talent which he derives 
from his God to the honour, and succour, and pro- 
tection of his creatures — this interesting and high- 
ly-gifted young man runs his course like a giant, 
prospering and to prosper; — in the court as a 
flaming sword, leading and lighting the injured to 
their own ; and in the public assembly exposing 



/ 



PREFACE, 



XV 



her wrongs — exacting her rights — conquering envy 

-—trampling on corruption — beloved by his coun- 
try — esteemed by a world — enjoying and deserr- 
d unex a m p 1 e 1 fa m e — a n d a c live ly emplw 
ummer of bis I : itheriog bonoors for his 

name, and garl i grave ! 



DELIVERED AT A PUBLIC DINNER GIVEN TO 

MR. FINLAY, 

BY THE ROMAN CATHOLICS 

OE THE TOWN AND COUNTY CE 

SLIGO. 



I think, sir, you will agree with me, that the 
most experienced speaker might justly tremble in 
addressing you after the display you have just 
witnessed. What, then, must I feel, who never be- 
fore addressed a public audience ? However, it 
would be but an unworthy affectation in me were 
I to conceal from you the emotions with which I 
am agitated by this kindness. The exaggerated 
estimate which other countries have made of the 
few services so young a man could render, has, I 
hope, inspired me with the sentiments it ought ; but 
here, I do confess to you, I feel no ordinary sen- 
sation — here, where every object springs some new 
association, and the loveliest objects, mellowed as 
they are by time, rise painted on the eye of mem- 
ory — here, where the light of heaven first blessed 
my infant view, and nature breathed into my infant 
heart that ardour for my country which nothing 
but death can chill — here, where the scenes of my 
3 



18 SPEECH 

childhood remind me, how innocent I was, and the 
graves of my fathers admonish me, how pure F 
should continue — here, standing as I do amongst 
my fairest, fondest, earliest sympathies, — such a 
welcome, operating, not merely as an affectionate 
tribute, but as a moral testimony, does indeed quite 
oppress and overwhelm me. 

Oh ! believe me, warm is the heart that feels, 
and willing is the tongue that speaks j and still, I 
cannot, by shaping it to my rudely inexpressive 
phrase, shock the sensibility of a gratitude too full 
to be suppressed, and yet (how far !) too eloquent 
for language. 

If any circumstance could add to the pleasure 
of this day, it is that which I feel in introducing to 
the friends of my youth the friend of my adoption, 
though perhaps I am committing one of our im- 
puted blunders, when I speak of introducing one 
whose patriotism has already rendered him famil- 
iar to every heart in Ireland ; a man, who, con- 
quering every disadvantage, and spurning every 
difficulty, has poured around our misfortunes the 
splendour of an intellect that at once irradiates 
and consumes them. For the services he has ren- 
dered to his country, from my heart I thank him, 
and, for myself, I offer him a personal, it may be 
a selfish, tribute for saving me, by his presence 
this night, from an impotent attempt at his pan- 
egyric. Indeed, gentlemen, you can have little 
idea of what he has to endure, who, in these times, 
advocates your cause. Every calumny which the 
venal and the vulgar, and the vile are lavishing 
upon you is visited with exaggeration upon us. — 
We are called traitors, because we would rally 
round the crown an unanimous people. We are 
called apostates, because we will not persecute 



AT SLIGO. 19 

Christianity. We are branded as separatists, be- 
cause of our endeavours to annihilate the fetters 
that, instead of binding, clog the connexion. To 
these may be added, the frowns of power, the envy 
of dulness, the mean malice of exposed self-inter- 
est, and, it may be, in despite of all natural affec- 
tion, even the discountenance of kindred ! Well, 
be it so, — 

For thee, fair freedom, welcome all the past, 
For thee, my country, welcome e'en the last 1 

I am not ashamed to confess to you, that there wa? 
a day, when I was bigoted as the blackest ; but 
I thank the Being who gifted me with a mind 
not quite impervious to conviction, and I thank 
you, who afforded such convincing testimonies of 
my error. I saw you enduring with patience the 
most unmerited assaults, bowing before the insults 
of revived anniversaries ; in private life, exempla- 
ry ; m public, unoffending ; in the hour of peace, 
asserting your loyalty ; in the hour of danger, 
proving it. Even when an invading enemy victori- 
ously penetrated into the very heart of our country, 
I saw the banner of your allegiance beaming refu- 
tation on your slanderers ; was it a wonder, then, 
that I seized my prejudices, and with a blush 
burned them on the altar of my country ! 

The great question of catholic, shall I not rath- 
er say of Irish emancipation, has now assumed 
that national aspect which imperiously challenges 
the scrutiny of every one. While it was shrouded 
in the mantle of religious mystery, with the temple 
for its sanctuary, and the pontiff for its sentinel, 
the vulgar eye might shrink and the vulgar spirit 
shudder. But now it has come forth, visible and 
tangible, for the inspection of the laity : and I sol- 



20 SPEECH 

emnly protest, dressed as it has been in the double 
haberdashery of the English minister and the Ital- 
ian prelate, I know not whether to laugh at its ap- 
pearance, or to loathe its pretensions — to shudder 
at the deformity of its original creation, or smile 
at the grotesqueness of its foreign decorations. On- 
ly just admire this far-famed security bill, — this 
motly compound of oaths and penalties, which, 
under the name of emancipation, would drag your 
prelates with a halter about their necks to the 
vulgar scrutiny of every village-tyrant, in order to 
enrich a few political traders, and distil through 
some state alembic the miserable rinsings of an ig- 
norant, a decaying, and degenerate aristocracy I 
Only just admire it ! Originally engendered by our 
friends the opposition, with a cuckoo insidiousness, 
they swindled it into the nest of the treasury ra- 
vens, and when it had been fairly hatched with 
the beak of the one, and the nakedness of the 
other, they sent it for its feathers to Monseigneur 
Quarantotti, who has obligingly transmitted it 
with the hunger of its parent, the rapacity of its 
nurse, and the coxcombry of its plumassicr, to be 
baptized by the bishops, and received cequo gra- 
toque animo by the people of Ireland ! 

Oh, thou sublimely ridiculous Quarantotti ! Oh, 
thou superlative coxcomb of the conclave ! what 
an estimate hast thou formed of .the mind of Ireland ! 
Yet why should I blame this wretched scribe of 
the Propaganda ! He had every right to speculate 
as he did ; all the chances of the calculation were 
in his favour. Uncommon must be the people over 
whom centuries of oppression have revolved in 
vain ! Strange must be the mind which is not sub- 
dued by suffering ! Sublime the spirit which is not 
debased by servitude ! God. I give thee thanks !— 



AT SLIGO. 21 

lie knew not Ireland. Bent — broken— manacled 
as she has been, she will not bow to the mandate 
of an Italian slave, transmitted through an English 
vicar. For my own part, as an Irish protestant* 
I trample to the earth this audacious and desperate 
experiment of authority; and for you, as catholics^ 
the time is come to give that calumny the lie which 
represents you as subservient to a foreign influence. 
That influence, indeed, seems not quite so unbend- 
ing as it suited the purposes of bigotry to represent 
it, and appears now not to have conceded more, 
only because more was not demanded. The theol- 
ogy of the question is not for me to argue ; it can- 
not be in better hands than in those of your bish- 
ops ; and I can have no doubt that when they 
bring their rank, their learning, their talents, their 
piety, and their patriotism to this sublime deliber- 
ation, they will consult the dignity of that venerable 
fabric which has stood for ages, splendid and im- 
mutable ; which time could not crumble, nor per- 
secutions shake, nor revolutions change ; which 
has stood amongst us like some stupendous and 
majestic Appenifie, the earth rocking at its feet, 
and the heavens roaring round its head, firmly 
balanced on the base of its eternity ; the relic of 
what was ; the solemn and sublime memento of 

WHAT MUST BE ! 

Is this my opinion as a professed member of the 
church of England ? Undoubtedly it is. As an 
Irishman, I feel my liberties interwoven, and the 
best affections of my heart as it were enfibred with 
those of my catholic countrymen ; and as a Pro- 
testant, convinced of the purity of my awn faith, 
would I not debase it by postponing the powers of 
reason to the suspicious instrumentality of this 
world's conversion? No; surrendering as I do, 



22 SPEECH 

with a proud contempt, all the degrading advantages 
with which an ecclesiastical usurpation would in- 
vest me ; so I will not interfere with a blasphemous 
intrusion between any man and his Maker. I hold 
it a criminal and accursed sacrilege, to rob even a 
beggar of a single motive for his devotion ; and I 
hold it an equal insult to my own faith, to offer me 
any boon for its profession. This pretended eman- 
cipation-bill passing into a law, would, in my mind, 
strike a blow not at this sect or that sect, but 
at the very vitality of Christianity itself. I am 
thoroughly convinced that the anti-christian con- 
nexion between church and state, which it was 
euited to increase, has done more mischief to the 
gospel interests, than all the ravings of infidelity 
since the crucifixion. The sublime Creator of our 
blessed creed never meant it to be the channel of 
a courtly influence, or the source of a corrupt as- 
cendancy. He sent it amongst us to heal, not to 
irritate ; to associate, not to seclude ; to collect 
together, like the baptismal dove, every creed and 
clime and colour in the universe, beneath the spot- 
less wing of its protection; 

The union of church and state only converts 
good christians into bad statesmen, and political 
knaves into pretended christians. It is at best but 
a foul and adulterous connexion, polluting the pu- 
rity of heaven with the abomination of earth, and 
hanging the tatters of a political piety upon the cross 
of an insulted Saviour. Religion, Holy Religion, 
ought not, in the words of its Founder, to be " led 
into temptation." The hand that holds her chalice 
should be pure, and the priests of her temple 
should be spotless as the vestments of their minis- 
try. Rank only degrades, wealth only impoverish- 
es, ornaments but disfigure her. I would have her 



AT SL1GO. 23 

pure, unpen&ioned, unstipendiary ; she should rob 
the earth of nothing but its sorrows : a divine arch 
of promise, her extremities should rest on the hor- 
izon, and her span embrace the universe : but her 
only sustenance should be the tears that were ex- 
haled and embellished by the sun-beam. Such is 
my idea of what religion ought to be. What would 
this bill make it ? A mendicant of the castle, a me- 
nial at the levee, its manual the red book, its litur- 
gy the pension-list, its gospel the will of the minis- 
ter ! Methinks I see the stalled and fatted victim 
of its creation, cringing with a brute suppliancy 
through the venal mob of ministerial flatterers, 
crouching to the ephemeral idol of the day, and r 
like the devoted sacrifice of ancient heathenism, 
glorying in the garland that only decorates him 
for death ! I will read to you the opinions of a ce- 
lebrated Irishman, on the suggestion in his day of 
a bill similar to that now proposed for our oppres- 
sion. He was a man who added to the pride not 
merely of his country but of his species — a man 
who robbed the very soul of inspiration in the 
splendours of a pure and overpowering eloquence. 
I allude to Mr. Burke — an authority at least to 
which the sticklers for establishments can offer no 
objection. " Before I had written thus far," says 
he, in his letter on the penal laws, " I heard of a 
scheme for giving to the castle the patronage of 
the presiding members of the catholic clergy. At 
first I could scarcely credit it, for I believe it is the 
first time that the presentation to other people's 
alms has been desired in any country. Never were 
the members of one religious sect fit to appoint the 
pastors to another. It is a great deal to suppose 
that the present castle would nominate bishops for 
the Roman church in Ireland with a religious regard 



24 SPEECH 

for its welfare. Perhaps they cannot, perhaps they 
dare not do it. But suppose them to be as well 
inclined, as I know that I am, to do the catholics 
all kinds of justice, I declare I would not, if it 
were in my power, take that patronage on myself. 
I know I ought not to do it. I belong to another 
community ; and it would be an intolerable usurp- 
ation in me, where I conferred no benefit, or even 
if -I did confer temporal advantages. How can the 
lord lieutenant form the least judgment on their 
merits so as to decide which of the popish priests 
is fit to be a bishop ? It cannot be. The idea is 
ridiculous. He will hand them over to lords-lieu- 
tenant of counties, justices of the peace, and others, 
who, for the purpose of vexing and turning into 
derision this miserable people, will pick out the 
worst and most obnoxious they can find amongst 
the clergy to govern the rest. Whoever is com- 
plained against by his brother, will be considered 
as persecuted ; whoever is censured by his supe- 
rior, will be looked upon as oppressed ; whoever 
is careless in his opinions, loose in his morals, will 
be called a liberal man, and will be supposed to 
have incurred hatred because he was not a bigot. 
Informers, tale-bearers, perverse and obstinate 
men, flatterers, who turn their back upon their 
flock and court the protestant gentlemen of their 
country, will be the objects of preferment, and then 
I run no risk in foretelling, that whatever order, 
quiet, and morality you have in the country will 
be lost." Now, let me ask you, is it to such char- 
acters as those described by Burke, that you would 
delegate the influence imputed to your priest- 
hood ? Believe me, you would soon see them trans- 
ferring their devotion from the cross to the 
castle : wearing their sacred vestments but as a 



AT SLIGO. 25 

masquerade-appendage, and under the degraded 
passport of the Almighty's name, sharing the plea- 
sures of the court, and the spoils of the people. 
When I say this, I am bound to add, and I do so 
from many proud and pleasing recollections, that 
I think the impression on the catholic clergy of the 
present day would be late, and would be delible. 
But it is human nature. Rare are the instances in 
which a contact with the court has not been the 
beginning of corruption. The man of God is pe- 
culiarly disconnected with it. It directly violates 
his special mandate, who took his birth from the 
manger, and his disciples from the fishing-boat, 
Judas was the first who received the money of 
power, and it ended in the disgrace of his creed* 
and the death of his master. If I was a catholic, I 
would peculiarly deprecate any interference with 
my priesthood. Indeed, I do not think, in any one 
respect in which we should wish to view the dele- 
gates of the Almighty, that, making fair allowan- 
ces for human infirmity, they could be amended. 
The catholic clergy, of Ireland are rare examples 
of the doctrines they inculcate. Pious in their hab- 
its, almost primitive in their manners, they have no 
care but their dock — no study but their gospel. It 
is not in the gaudy ring of courtly dissipation that 
you will find the Murrays, the Coppingers, and 
the Moylans of the present day — not at the levee, 
or the lounge, or the election-riot. No ; you will 
find them wherever good is to be done or evil to 
be corrected — rearing their mitres in the van of 
misery, consoling the captive, reforming the con- 
vict, enriching the orphan ; ornaments of this 
world, and emblems of a better : preaching their 
God through the practice of every virtue; moni- 
tors at the confessional, apostles in the pulpit, 
4 



26 SPEECH 

saints at the death-bed, holding the sacred water 
to the lip of sin, or pouring the redeeming unction 
on the agonies of despair. Oh, I would hold him 
little better than the Promethean robber, who 
would turn the fire of their eternal altar into the 
impure and perishable mass of this world's pre- 
ferment. Better by far that the days of ancient 
barbarism should revive — better that your religion 
should again take refuge among the fastnesses of 
the mountain, and the solitude of the cavern — 
better that the rack of a murderous bigotry should 
again terminate the miseries of your priesthood, 
and that the gate of freedom should be only open 
to them through the gate of martyrdom, than that 
they should gild their missals with the wages of a 
court, and expect their ecclesiastical promotion, 
not from their superior piety, but their compara- 
tive prostitution. But why this interference with 
your principles of conscience ? Why is it that they 
will not erect 'our liberties save on the ruin of 
your temples ? Why is it that in the day of peace 
they demand securities from a people who in the 
day of danger constituted their strength ? When 
were they denied every security that was reason- 
albe ? Was it in 1776, when a cloud of enemies, 
hovering on our coast, saw every heart a shield, 
and every hill a fortress ? Did they want securi- 
ties in catholic Spain ? Were they denied securi- 
ties in catholic Portugal ? What is their security 
to-day in catholic Canada ? Return — return to us 
our own glorious Wellington, and tell incredulous 
England what was her security amid the lines of 
Torres Vedras, or on the summit of Barrosra ! 
Rise, libelled martyrs of the peninsula ! — rise from 
your "gory bed," and give security for your child- 
less parents ! No, there is not a catholic family in 



AT SLIGO. 2? 

Ireland, that for the glory of Great Britian is not 
weeping over a child's, a brother's, or a parent's 
grave, and yet still she clamours for securities ! Oh, 
prejudice, where is thy reason ! Oh, bigotry, where 
is thy blush ! If ever there was an opportunity 
for England to combine gratitude with justice, and 
dignity with safety, it is the present. Now, when 
Irish blood has crimsoned the cross upon her na- 
val flag, and an Irish hero strikes the harp to vic- 
tory upon the summit of the Pyrenees. England — 
England ! do not hesitate. This hour of triumph 
may be but the hour of trial ; another season may 
see the splendid panorama of European vassalage, 
arrayed by your ruthless enemy, and glittering be- 
neath the ruins of another capital — perhaps of 
London. Who can say it ? A few months since, 
Moscow stood as splendid and as secure. Fair rose 
the morn on the patriarchal city — the empress of 
her nation, the queen of commerce, the sanctuary 
of strangers, her thousand spires pierced the very 
heavens, and her domes of gold reflected back the 
sun-beams. The spoiler came ; he marked her for 
his victim ; and, as if his very glance was destiny, 
even before the nightfall, with all her pomp, and 
wealth, and happiness, she withered from the 
world ! A heap of ashes told where once stood 
Moscow ! Merciful God, if this lord of desolation, 
heading his locust legions, were to invade our coun- 
try ; though I do not ask what would be your de- 
termination ; though, in the language of our young 
enthusiast, I am sure you would oppose him with 
" a sword in one hand, and a torch in the other ;" 
still I do ask, and ask with fearlessness, upon what 
single principle of policy or of justice, could the 
advocates for your exclusion solicit your assistance 
— could they expect you to support a constitution 



2# SPEECH 

from whose benefits you were debarred? With 
what front could they ask you to recover an as- 
cendency, which in point of fact was but re-estab- 
lishing your bondage ? 

It has been said that there is a faction in Ireland 
ready to join this despot — " a French party," as 
Mr. Grattan thought it decent, even in the very 
senate-house, to promulgate. Sir, I speak the uni- 
versal voice of Ireland when I say, she spurns the 
imputation. There is no " French party" here ; 
but there is — and it would be strange if there was 
not — there is an Irish party — men who cannot bear 
to see their country taunted with the mockery of 
a constitution — men who will be content with no 
connexion that refuses them a community of bene- 
fits while it imposes a community of privations — 
men who, sooner than see this land polluted by 
the footsteps of a slave, would wish the ocean- 
wave became its sepulchre, and that the orb of 
heaven forgot where it existed. It has been said 
too (and when we were to be calumniated, what 
has not been said ?) that Irishmen are neither fit 
for freedom or grateful for favours. In the first 
place, I deny that to be a favour which is a right ; 
and in the next place I utterly deny that a system 
of conciliation has ever been adopted with respect 
to Ireland. Try them, and, my life on it, they will 
be found grateful. I think I know my countrymen ; 
they cannot help being grateful for a benefit ; and 
there is no country on the earth where one would 
be conferred with more characteristic benevo- 
lence. They are, emphatically, the school-boys of 
the heart — a people of sympathy ; their acts spring 
instinctively from their passions ; by nature ardent, 
by instinct brave, by inheritance generous. The 
children of impulse, they cannot avoid their vir- 



AT SLIG0. 29 

tues ; and to be other than noble, they must not 
only be unnatural but be unnatioiiaL Put my 
panegyric to the test. Enter the hovel of the Irish 
peasant. I do not say you will find the frugality of 
the Scotch, the comfort of the English, or the fan- 
tastic decorations of the French cottager; but I 
do say, within those wretched bazaars of mud and 
misery, you will find sensibility the most affecting, 
politeness the most natural, hospitality the most 
grateful, merit the most unconscious ; their look is 
eloquence, their smile is love, their retort is wit* 
their remark is wisdom — not a wisdom borrowed 
from the dead, but that with which nature has 
herself inspired them ; an acute observance of the 
passing scene, and a d^ep insight into the motives 
of its agents. Try to deceive them, and see with 
what shrewdness they will detect ; try to outwit 
them, and see with what humour they will elude; 
attack them with argument, and you will stand 
amazed at the strength of their expression, the 
rapidity of their ideas, and the energy of their 
gesture ! In short, God seems to have formed our 
country like our people : he has thrown around the 
one its wild, magnificent, decorated rudeness; he 
has infused into the other the simplicity of genius 
and the seeds of virtue : he says audibly to us, 
Ai Give them cultivation." 

This is the way, gentlemen, in which I have 
always looked upon your question — not as a party, 
or a sectarian, or a catholic, but as an Irish 
question. Is it possible that any man can seriously 
believe the paralyzing five millions of such a peo- 
ple, as I have been describing, can be a benefit 
to the empire! Is there any man who deserves 
the name, not of a statesman, but of a rational be- 
ing, who can think it politic to rob such a inulti- 



30 SPEECH 

tude of all the energies of an honourable ambi- 
tion ! Look to protestant Ireland, shooting over 
the empire those rays of genius, and those thun- 
derbolts of war, that have at once embellished 
and preserved it. I speak not of a former era. I 
refer not for my example to the day just passed, 
when our Burkes, our Barry s, and our Goldsmiths, 
exiled by this system from their native shore, 
wreathed the " immortal shamrock" round the 
brow of painting, poetry, and eloquence! But 
now, even while I speak, who leads the British 
senate ? A protestant Irishman ! Who guides the 
British arms ? A protestant Irishman ! And why, 
why is catholic Ireland, with her quintuple popula- 
tion, stationary and silent ? Have physical causes 
neutralized its energies? Has the religion of 
Christ stupified its intellect? Has the God of 
mankind become the partizan of monopoly, and 
put an interdict on its advancement? Stranger, 
do not ask the bigoted and pampered renegade 
who has an interest in deceiving you ; but open 
the penal statutes and weep tears of blood over 
the reason. Come, come yourself, and see this 
unhappy people : see the Irishman, the only alien 
in Ireland, in rags and wretchedness, staining the 
sweetest scenery ever eye reposed on, persecuted 
by the extorting middle-man of some absentee 
landlord, plundered by the lay-proctor of some 
rapacious and unsympathizing incumbent, bear- 
ing through life but insults and injustice, and 
bereaved even of any hope in death by the heart- 
rending reflection that he leaves his children to 
bear like their father an abominable bondage ! Is 
this the fact ? Let any man who doubts it walk out 
into your streets, and see the consequences of such 
a system ; see it rearing up crowds in a kind of 



AT SLIG(X 31 

apprenticeship to the prison, absolutely permitted 
by their parents from utter despair to lisp the al- 
phabet and learn the rudiments of profligacy ! For 
my part, never did I meet one of these youthful 
assemblages without feeling within me a melan- 
choly emotion. How often have I thought within 
that little circle of neglected triflers who seem to 
have been born in caprice and bred in orphanage, 
there may exist some mind formed of the finest 
mould and wrought for immortality ; a soul swell- 
ing with the energies and stamped with the patent 
of the Deity, which under proper culture might 
perhaps bless, adorn, immortalize, or ennoble em- 
pires ; some Cincinnatus, in whose breast the des- 
tinies of a nation may lie dormant ; some Milton, 
" pregnant with celestial fire ;" some Curran, who, 
when thrones were crumbled and dynasties forgot- 
ten, might stand the landmark of his country's 
genius, rearing himself amid regal ruins and na- 
tional dissolution, a mental pyramid in the solitude 
of time, beneath whose shade things might moul- 
der, and round whose summit eternity must play. 
Even in such a circle the young Demosthenes 
might have once been found, and Homer, the dis- 
grace and glory of his age, have sung neglected ! 
Have not other nations witnessed those things, 
and who shall say that nature has peculiarly de- 
graded the intellect of Ireland ? Oh ! my country- 
men, let us hope that under better auspices and 
a sounder policy, the ignorance that thinks so 
may meet its refutation. Let us turn from the 
blight and ruin of this wintry day to the fond an- 
ticipation of a happier period, when our prostrate 
land shall stand erect among the nations, fearless 
and unfettered ; her brow blooming with the 
wreath of science, and her path strewed with the 



32 SPEECH AT SLIGO. 

offerings of art ; the breath of heaven blessing her 
flag, the extremities of earth acknowledging her 
name, her fields waving with the fruits of agricul- 
ture, her ports alive with the contributions of com- 
merce, and her temples vocal with unrestricted 
piety. Such is the ambition of the true patriot ; 
such are the views for which we are calumniated ! 
Oh, divine ambition ! Oh, delightful calumny ! 
Happy he who shall see thee accomplished ! Hap- 
py he who through every peril toils for thy attain- 
ment ! Proceed, friend of Ireland and partaker of 
her wrongs, proceed undaunted to this glorious 
consummation, fortune will not gild, power will 
not ennoble thee ; but thou shalt be rich in the 
love and titled by the blessings of thy country; 
thy path shall be illumined by the public eye, thy 
labours lightened by the public gratitude ; and oh, 
remember — amid the impediments with which cor- 
ruption will oppose, and the dejection with which 
disappointments may depress you — remember you 
are acquiring a name to be cherished by the fu- 
ture generations of earth, long after it has been en- 
rolled amongst the inheritors of heaven. 



DELIVERED AT 

AN AGGREGATE MEETING 

Off 

THE ROMAN CATHOLICS 

OE 

CORK. 



It is with no small degree of self-congratulation 
that I at length find myself in a province which 
every glance of the eye, and every throb of the 
heart, tells me is truly Irish ; and that congratula- 
tion is not a little enhanced by finding that you 
receive me not as quite a stranger. Indeed, if to 
respect the christian without regard to his creed, 
if to love the country but the more for its cala- 
mities, if to hate oppression though it be robed in 
power, if to venerate integrity though it pine un- 
der persecution, gives a man any claim to your 
recognition; then, indeed, I am not a stranger 
amongst you. There is a bond of union between 
brethren, however distant ; there is a sympathy 
between the virtuous, however separated ; there is 
a heaven-born instinct by which the associates of 
the heart become at once acquainted, and kindred 
natures as it were by magic see in the face of a 
•tranger, the features of a friend. Thus it is, that* 
5 



34 SPEECH 

though we never met, you hail in me the sweet 
association, and I feel myself amongst you even as 
if I were in the home of my nativity. But this 
my knowledge of you was not left to chance; nor 
was it left to the records of your charity, the me- 
morials of your patriotism, your municipal magni- 
ficence, or your commercial splendour ; it came 
to me hallowed by the accents of that tongue on 
which Ireland has so often hung with ecstacy, 
heightened by the eloquence and endeared by the 
sincerity of, I hope, our mutual friend. Let me 
congratulate him on having become in some de- 
gree naturalized in a province, where the spirit of 
the elder day seems to have lingered ; and let me 
congratulate you on the acquisition of a man who 
is at once the zealous advocate of your cause, and 
a practical instance of the injustice of your oppres- 
sions. Surely, surely if merit had fair play, if 
splendid talents, if indefatigable industry, if great 
research, if unsullied principle, if a heart full of 
the finest affections, if a mind matured in every 
manly accomplishment, in short, if every noble, 
public quality, mellowed and reflected in the pure 
mirror of domestic virtue, could entitle a subject 
to distinction in a state, Mr. O'Connel should be 
distinguished ; but, it is his crime to be a catholic, 
and his curse to be an Irishman. Simpleton ! he 
prefers his conscience to a place, and the love of 
his country to a participation in her plunder ! In- 
deed, he will never rise. If he joined the bigots 
of my«sect, he might be a sergeant; if he joined 
the infidels of your sect, he might enjoy a pension, 
and there is no knowing whether some Orange- 
corporator, on an Orange-anniversary, might not 
modestly yield him the precedence of giving " the 
glorious and immortal memory." Oh, yes, he 



AT CORK. 35 

might be privileged to get drunk in gratitude to 
the man who colonized ignorance in his native 
land, and left to his creed the legacy of legalized 
persecution. Nor would he stand alone, no matter 
what might be the measure of his disgrace, or the 
degree of his dereliction. You well know there 
are many of your own community who would leave 
him at the distance-post. In contemplating their 
recreancy, I should be almost tempted to smile at 
the exhibition of their pretensions, if there was not 
a kind of moral melancholy intermingled, that 
changed satire into pity, and ridicule into con- 
tempt. For my part, I behold them in the apathy 
of their servitude, as I would some miserable 
maniac in the contentment of his captivity. Poor 
creature ! when all that raised him from the brute 
is levelled, and his glorious intellect is mouldering 
in ruins, you may see him with his song of triumph, 
and his crown of straw, a fancied freeman mid the 
clanking of his chains, and an imaginary monarch 
beneath the inflictions of his keeper ! Merciful 
God ! is it not almost an argument for the sceptic 
and the disbeliever, when we see the human shape 
almost without an aspiration of the human soul, 
separated by no boundary from the beasts that 
perish, beholding with indifference the captivity 
of their country, the persecution of their creed, 
and the helpless, hopeless destiny of their chil- 
dren ? But they have nor creed, nor consciences, 
nor country; their god is gold, their gospel is a 
contract, their church a counting-house^ their 
characters a commodity ; they never pray but for 
the opportunities of corruption, and hold their 
consciences, as they do their government-deben- 
tures, at a price proportioned to the misfortunes of 
their country. But let us turn from those mendi- 



36 



SPEECH 



cants of disgrace : though Ireland is doomed to the 
stain of their birth, her mind need not be sullied 
by their contemplation. I turn from them with 
pleasure to the contemplation of your cause, which, 
as far as argument can effect it, stands on a sublime 
and splendid elevation. Every obstacle has van- 
ished into air ; every favourable circumstance has 
hardened into adamant. The Pope, whom child- 
hood was taught to lisp as the enemy of religion, 
and age shuddered at as a prescriptive calamity, 
has by his example put the princes of Christendom 
to shame. This day of miracles, in which the hu- 
man heart has been strung to its extremest point 
of energy; this day, to which posterity will look 
for instances of every crime and every virtue, 
holds not in its page of wonders a more sublime 
phenomenon than that calumniated pontiff. Placed 
at the very pinnacle of human elevation, surround- 
ed by the pomp of the Vatican and the splendours 
of the court, pouring the mandates of Christ from 
the throne of the Cesars, nations were his sub- 
jects, kings were his companions, religion was his 
handmaid ; he went forth gorgeous with the accu- 
mulated dignity of ages, every knee bending, and 
every eye blessing the prince of one world and the 
prophet of another. Have we not seen him, in 
one moment, his crown crumbled, his sceptre a 
reed, his throne a shadow, his home a dungeon ! 
But if we have, catholics, it was only to show how 
inestimable is human virtue compared with human 
grandeur ; it was only to show those whose faith 
was failing, and whose fears were strengthening, 
that the simplicity of the patriarchs, the piety of 
the saints, and the patience of the martyrs, had 
not wholly vanished. Perhaps it was also ordain- 
ed to show the bigot at home, as well as the tyrant 



AT CORK. 37 

abroad, that though the person might be chained, 
and the motive calumniated, religion was still 
strong enough to support her sons, and to con- 
found, if she could not reclaim, her enemies. No 
threats could awe, no promises could tempt, no 
sufferings could appal him ; mid the damps of his 
dungeon he dashed away the cup in which the 
pearl of his liberty was to be dissolved. Only 
reflect on the state of the world at that moment! 
All around him was convulsed, the very founda- 
tions of the earth seemed giving way, the comet 
was let loose that " from its fiery hair shook pesti- 
lence and death," the twilight was gathering, the 
tempest was roaring, the darkness was at hand ; 
but he towered sublime, like the last mountain in 
the deluge — majestic, not less in his elevation than 
in his solitude, immutable amid change, magnifi- 
cent amid ruin, the last remnant of earth's beauty, 
the last resting-place of heaven's light ! Thus have 
the terrors of the Vatican retreated ; thus has that 
cloud which hovered o'er your cause brightened at 
once into a sign of your faith and an assurance of 
your victory. Another obstacle, the omnipotence 
of France ; I know it was a pretence, but it was 
made an obstacle — What has become of it ? The 
spell of her invincibility destroyed, the spirit of 
her armies broken, her immense boundary dis- 
membered, and the lord of her empire become the 
exile of a rock. She allows fancy no fear, and 
bigotry no speciousness ; and, as if in the very 
operation of the change to point the purpose of 
your redemption, the hand that replanted the re- 
jected lily was that of an Irish catholic. Perhaps 
it is not also unworthy of remark, that the last day 
of her triumph, and the first of her decline, was 
that on which her insatiable chieftain smote the 



38 SPEECH 

holy head of your religion. You will hardly sus- 
pect I am imbued with the follies of supersti- 
tion ; but when the man now unborn shall trace 
the story of that eventful day, he will see the 
adopted child of fortune borne on the wings of 
victory from clime to clime, marking every move- 
ment with a triumph, and every pause with a 
crown, till time, space, seasons, nay, even nature 
herself, seeming to vanish from before him, in the 
blasphemy of his ambition he smote the apostle of 
his God, and dared to raise the everlasting cross 
amid his perishable trophies ! I am no fanatic, but 
is it not remarkable ? May it be one of those 
signs which the Deity has sometimes given in com- 
passion to our infirmity ; signs, which in the pun- 
ishment of one nation not unfrequently denote the 
warning to another ; — 

" Signs sent by God to mark the will of Heaven, 
Signs, which bid nations weep and be forgiven." 

The argument, however, is taken from the bigot ; 
and those whose consciousness taught them to ex- 
pect what your loyalty should have taught them 
to repel, can no longer oppose you from the terrors 
of invasion. Thus, then, the papal phantom and 
the French threat have vanished into nothing. — 
Another obstacle, the tenets of your creed. Has 
England still to learn them? I will tell her 
where. Let her ask Canada, the last plank of 
her American shipwreck. Let her ask Portugal, 
the first omen of her European splendour. Let 
her ask Spain, the most catholic country in the 
universe, her catholic friends, her catholic allies, 
her rivals in the triumph, her reliance in the re- 
treat, her last stay when the world had deserted 



AT CORK. 39 

her. They must have told her on the field of 
blood, whether it was true that they " kept no faith 
with, heretics." Alas, alas ! how miserable a thing 
is bigotry, when every friend puts it to the blush, 
and every triumph but rebukes its weakness. If 
England continued still to accredit this calumny, I 
would direct her for conviction to the hero for 
whose gift alone she owes us an eternity of grat- 
itude ; whom we have seen leading the van of 
universal emancipation, decking his wreath with 
the flowers of every soil, and filling his army with 
the soldiers of every sect ; before whose splendid 
dawn, every tear exhaling and every vapour 
vanishing, the colours of the European world 
have revived, and the spirit of European liberty 
(may no crime avert the omen !) seems to have 
arisen ! Suppose he was a catholic, could this 
have been? Suppose catholics did not follow 
him, could this have been ? Did the catholic 
Cortes inquire his faith when they gave him the 
supreme command ? Did the Regent of Portugal 
withhold from his creed the reward of his valour ? 
Did the catholic soldier pause at Salamanca to 
dispute upon polemics ? Did the catholic chief- 
tain prove upon Barrossa that he kept no faith with 
heretics, or did the creed of Spain, the same with 
that of France, the opposite of that of England, 
prevent their association in the field of liberty? 
Oh, no, no, no, no ! the citizen of every clime, the 
friend of every colour, and the child of every 
creed, liberty walks abroad in the ubiquity of her 
benevolence.; alike to her the varieties of faith 
and the vicissitudes of country ; she has no object 
but the happiness of man, no bounds but the ex- 
tremities of creation. Yes, yes, it was reserved for 
Wellington to redeem his own country when he 






40 SPEECH 



was regenerating every other. It was reserved for 
him to show how viie were the aspersions on your 
creed, how generous were the glowings of your 
gratitude. He was a protestant, yet catholics trust- 
ed him ; he was a protestant, yet catholics advan- 
ced him ! He is a protestant knight in catholic 
Portugal, he is a protestant duke in catholic Spain, 
he is the protestant commander of catholic armies: 
he is more, he is the living proof of the catholic's 
liberality, and the undeniable refutation of the 
protestant's injustice. Gentlemen, as a protestant, 
though I may blush for the bigotry of many of my 
creed, who continue obstinate in the teeth of this 
conviction, still were I a catholic I should feel littl* 
triumph in the victory. I should only hang my head 
at the distresses which this warfare occasioned to 
my country. I should only think how long she had 
writhed in the agony of her disunion ; how long she 
had bent, fettered by slaves, cajoled by block- 
heads, and plundered by adventurers ; the prov- 
erb of the fool, the prey of the politician, the dupe 
of the designing, the experiment of the desperate, 
struggling as it were between her own fanatical 
and infatuated parties, those hell-engendered ser- 
pents which enfold her, like the Trojan seer, even 
at the worship of her altars, and crush her to 
death in the very embraces of her children ! It is 
time (is it not ?) that she should be extricated. 
The act would be proud, the means would be 
christian ; mutual forbearance, mutual indulgence, 
mutual concession ; I would say to the protestant, 
concede ; I would say to the catholic, forgive ; J 
would say to both, though you bend not at the 
same shrine, you have a common God, and a com- 
mon country ; the one has commanded love, the 
other kneels to you for peace. This hostility of 



AT CORK. 41 

her sects has heen the disgrace, the peculiar dis- 
grace, of Christianity. The Gentoo loves his cast, 
so does the Mahometan, so does the Hindoo, 
whom England out of the abundance of her char- 
ity is about to teach her creed : — I hope she may 
not teach her practice. But Christianity, Christian- 
ity alone exhibits her thousand sects, each de- 
nouncing his neighbour here, in the name of God, 
and damning hereafter out of pure devotion ! 
44 You're a heretic," says the catholic : " You're a 
papist," says the protestant: 4i I appeal to St. Pe- 
ter," exclaims the catholic : 44 1 appeal to Saint 
Athanasius," says the protestant : 44 and if it goes 
to damning, he's as good at it as any saint in the 
calendar." 44 You'll all be damned eternally," 
moans out the methodist ; 44 I'm the elect !" Thus 
it is you see, each has his anathema, his accusa- 
tion, and his retort, and in the end religion is the 
victim ! The victory of each is the overthrow 
of all; and infidelity, laughing at the contest, 
writes the refutation of their creed in the blood of 
the combatants ! I wonder if this reflection has 
ever struck any of those reverend dignitaries who 
rear their mitres against catholic emancipation. 
Has it ever glanced across their christian zeal, if 
the story of our country should have casually reach- 
ed the valleys of Hindostan, with what an argu- 
ment they are furnishing the heathen world against 
their sacred missionary ? In what terms could the 
christian ecclesiastic answer the eastern Bramin, 
when he replied to his exhortations in language 
such as this ? 4i Father, we have heard your doc- 
trine ; it is splendid in theory, specious in pro- 
mise, sublime in prospect ; like the world to which 
it leads, it is rich in the miracles of light. But, 
father, we have heard that there are times when 
6 



42 SPEECH 

its rays vanish and leave your sphere in darkness, 
or when your only lustre arises from meteors of 
fire, and moons of blood : we have heard of the 
verdant island which the Great Spirit has raised 
in the bosom of the waters with such a bloom of 
beauty, that the very wave she has usurped wor- 
ships the loveliness of her intrusion. The sove- 
reign of our forests is not more generous in his 
anger than her sons ; the snow-flake, ere it falls 
on the mountain, is not purer than her daugh- 
ters ; little inland seas reflect the splendours of 
her landscape, and her valleys smile at the story 
of the serpent ! Father, is it true that this isle of 
the sun, this people of the morning, find the fury 
of the ocean in your creed, and more than the 
venom of the viper in your policy? Is it true that 
for six hundred years, her peasant has not tasted 
peace, nor her piety rested from persecution ? 
Oh ! Brama, defend us from the God of the chris- 
tian ! Father, father, return to your brethren, re- 
trace the waters; we may live in ignorance, but 
we live in love, and we will not taste the tree that 
gives us evil when it gives us wisdom. The heart 
is our guide, nature is our gospel ; in the imitation 
of our fathers we found our hope, and, if we err, 
on the virtue of our motives we rely for our re- 
demption." How would the missionaries of the 
mitre answer him ? How will they answer that in- 
sulted Being of whose creed their conduct carries 
the refutation? — But to what end do I argue with 
the Bigot ? — a wretch, whom no philosophy can 
humanize, no charity soften, no religion reclaim, 
no miracle convert ; a monster, who, red with the 
fires of hell, and bending under the crimes of 
earth, erects his murderous divinity upon a throne 
of sculls, and would gladly feed even with a bro- 



AT CORK. 



43 



ther's blood the cannibal appetite of his rejected 
altar ! His very interest cannot soften him into 
humanity. Surely, if it could, no man would be 
found mad enough to advocate a system which 
cankers the very heart of society, and undermines 
the natural resources of government ; which takes 
away the strongest excitement to industry, by clos- 
ing up every avenue to laudable ambition; which 
administers to the vanity or the vice of a party, 
when it should only study the advantage of a people; 
and holds out the perquisites of state as an impious 
bounty on the persecution of religion. — I have al- 
ready shown that the power of the pope, that the 
power of France, and that the tenets of your creed, 
were but imaginary auxiliaries to this system. An- 
other pretended obstacle has, however, been op- 
posed to your emancipation. I allude to the danger 
arising from a foreign influence. What a triumph- 
ant answer can you give to that ! Methinks, as 
lately, I see the assemblage of your hallowed hier- 
archy surrounded by the priesthood, and followed 
by the people, waving aloft the crucifix of Christ 
alike against the seductions of the court, and the 
commands of the conclave ! Was it not a delight- 
ful, an heart-cheering spectacle, to see that holy 
band of brothers preferring the chance of martyr- 
dom to the certainty of promotion, and postponing 
all the gratifications of worldly pride, to the severe 
but heaven-gaining glories of their poverty ? They 
acted honestly, and they acted wisely also ; for I 
say here, before the largest assembly I ever saw in 
any country — and I believe you are almost all 
catholics — I say here, that if the see of Rome pre- 
sumed to impose any temporal mandate directly 
or indirectly on the Irish people, the Irish bishops 
should at once abandon it, or their fiock« ? one and 



44 



SPEECH 



and all, would abjure and banish both of them to- 
gether. History affords us too fatal an example of 
the perfidious, arrogant, and venal interference of 
a papal usurper of former days in the temporal 
jurisdiction of this country; an interference as- 
sumed without right, exercised without principle, 
and followed by calamities apparently without end. 
Thus, then, has every obstacle vanished ; but it 
has done more — every obstacle has, as it were, by 
miracle, produced a powerful argument in your fa- 
vour ! How do I prove it ? Follow me in my proofs, 
and you will see by what links the chain is united. 
The power of Napoleon was the grand and lead- 
ing obstacle to your emancipation. That power 
led him to the menace of an Irish invasion. What 
did that prove ? Only the sincerity of Irish allegi- 
ance. On the very threat, we poured forth our vol- 
unteers, our yeomen, and our militia ; and the 
country became encircled with an armed and a loy- 
al population. Thus, then, the calumny of your dis- 
affection vanished. That power next led him to the 
invasion of Portugal. What did it prove ? Only the 
good faith of catholic allegiance. Every field in 
the peninsula saw the catholic Portuguese hail the 
English protestant as a brother and a friend joined 
in the same pride and the same peril.. Thus, then, 
vanished the slander that you could not keep faith 
with heretics. That power next led him to the im- 
prisonment of the pontiff, so long suspected of be- 
ing quite ready to sacrifice every thing to his in- 
terest and his dominion. What did that prove ? 
The strength of his principles, the purity of his 
faith, the disinterestedness of his practice. It 
proved a life spent in the study of the saints, and 
ready to be closed by an imitation of the martyrs. 
Thus, also, was the head of your religion vindi- 



AT CORK. 45 

eated to Europe. There remained behind but one 
impediment — jour liability to a foreign influence. 
Now mark! The pontiff's captivity led to the 
transmission of Quarantottrs rescript; and, on its 
arrival, from the priest to the peasant, there was 
not a catholic in the land, who did not spurn 
the document of Italian audacity ! Thus, then, 
vanished also the phantom of a foreign influence ! 
Is this conviction ? Is not the hand of God in 
it ? Oh yes ! for observe what followed. The 
very moment that power which was the first and 
last and leading argument against you, had by 
its special operation, banished every obstacle ; that 
power itself, as it were by enchantment, evaporat- 
ed at once; and peace with Europe took away 
the last pretence for your exclusion. Peace with 
Europe ! alas, alas, there is no peace for Ire- 
land : the universal pacification was but the sig- 
nal for renewed hostility to us, and the mock- 
ery of its preliminaries were tolled through our 
provinces by the knell of the curfew. I ask, is it 
not time that this hostility should cease? If ever 
there was a day when it was necessary, that day 
undoubtedly exists no longer. The continent is 
triumphant, the peninsula is free, France is our 
ally. The hapless house which gave birth to Jaco- 
bitism is extinct for ever. The pope has been 
found not only not hostile, but complying. In- 
deed, if England would recollect the share you 
had in these sublime events, the very recollection 
should subsidize her into gratitude. But should 
she not — should she, with a baseness monstrous 
and unparalleled, forget our services, she has still 
to study a tremendous lesson. The ancient order 
of Europe, it is true, is restored, but what restored 
it ? Coalition after coalition had crumbled away 



«# 



46 SPEECH 

before the might of the conqueror; crowns were 
but ephemeral ; monarchs only the tenants of an 
hour; the descendant of Frederick dwindled into 
a vassal ; the heir of Peter shrunk into the recesses 
of his frozen desert ; the successor of Charles 
roamed a vagabond, not only throneless but house- 
less ; every evening sun set upon a change ; every 
morning dawned upon some new convulsion : in 
short, the whole political globe quivered as with 
an earthquake, and who could tell what venerable 
monument was next to shiver beneath the splen- 
did, frightful, and reposeless heavings of the 
French volcano ! What gave Europe peace and 
England safety amid this palsy of her princes ? 
Was it not the Landwehr and the Landsturm and 
the Levy en Masse ? W r as it not the People ? 
that first and last, and best and noblest, as well as 
safest security of a virtuous government. It is a 
glorious lesson : she ought to study it in this hour 
of safety; but should she not — 

" Oh wo be to the prince who rules by fear, 
When danger comes upon him!" 

She will adopt it. I hope it from her wisdom; I 
expect it from her policy ; I claim it from her jus- 
tice ; I demand it from her gratitude. She must 
at length see that there is a gross mistake in the 
management of Ireland. No wise man ever yet 
imagined injustice to be his interest; and the 
minister who thinks he serves a state by upholding 
the most irritating and the most impious of all 
monopolies, will one day or other find himself 
miserably mistaken. This system of persecution 
is not the way to govern this country ; at least to 
govern it with any happiness to itself, or ad van- 



AT CORK, 47 

tage to its rulers. Centuries have proved its total 
inefficacy, and if it be continued for centuries, 
the proofs will be but multiplied. Why, however, 
should I blame the English people, when I see 
our own representatives so shamefully negligent 
of our interests ? The other day, for instance, 
when Mr. Peele introduced, aye, and passed too, 
his three newly-invented penal bills, to the neces- 
sity of which, every assizes in Ireland, and as 
honest a judge as ever dignified or redeemed the 
ermine, has given the refutation ; why was it 
that no Irish member rose in his place to vindi- 
cate his country ? Where were the nominal repre- 
sentatives of Ireland ? W^here were the rene- 
gade revilers of the demagogue ? Where were the 
noisy proclaimers of the board ? What, was there 
not one voice to own the country ? Was the patriot 
of 1782 an assenting auditor ? Were our hundred 
itinerants mute and motionless " quite chop- 
fallen?" or is it only when Ireland is slandered 
and her motives misrepresented, and her oppres- 
sions are basely and falsely denied, that their 
venal throats are ready to echo the chorus of min- 
isterial calumny ? Oh, I should not have to ask 
those questions, if in the late contest for this city, 
you had prevailed, and sent Hutchinson into 
Parliament: he would have risen, though alone, 
as I have often seen him — richer not less in he- 
reditary fame, than in personal accomplishments ; 
the ornament of Ireland as she is, the solitary 
remnant of what she was. If slander dare asperse 
her, it would not have done so with impunity. — 
He would have encouraged the timid ; he would 
have shamed the recreant ; and though he could 
not save us from chains, he would at least have 
shielded us from calumny. Let me hope that his 



48 SPEECH AT CORK. 

absence shall be but of short duration, and that 
this city will earn an additional claim to the grat- 
itude of the country, by electing him her repre- 
sentative. I scarcely know him but as a public 
man, and considering the state to which we are 
reduced by the apostacy of some, and the ingrat- 
itude of others, and venality of more, — I say you 
should inscribe the conduct of such a man in the 
manuals of your devotion, and in the primers of 
your children, but, above all, you should act on it 
yourselves. Let me entreat of you, above all 
things, to sacrifice any personal differences amongst 
yourselves, for the great cause in which you are 
embarked. Remember, the contest is for your 
children, your country, and your God ; and re- 
member also, that the day of Irish union will be 
the natal day of Irish liberty. When your own 
Parliament (which I trust in Heaven we may yet 
see again) voted you the right of franchise, and 
the right of purchase, it gave you, if you are not 
false to yourselves, a certainty of your emancipa- 
tion. My friends, farewell! This has been a 
most unexpected meeting to me ; it has been our 
first — it may be our last. I can never forget the 
enthusiasm of this reception. I am too much af- 
fected by it to make professions ; but, believe me, 
no matter where I may be driven by the whim of 
my destiny, you shall find me one in whom change 
of place shall create no change of principle ; one 
whose memory must perish ere he forgets his coun- 
try ; whose heart must be cold when it beats not 
for her happiness. 



DELIVERED AT A DINNER GIVEN ON 

DINAS ISLAND, 

IN THE LAKE OF KILLARNEY, 



2£R. PHILLIPS' HEALTH BEING GIVEN, TOGETHER WITH THAT 
OE MR. PAYNE, A YOUNG AMERICAN. 



It is not with the vain hope of returning by 
words the kindnesses which have been literally 
showered on me during the short period of our 
acquaintance, that I now interrupt, for a moment, 
the flow of your festivity. Indeed, it is not neces- 
sary ; an Irishman needs no requital for his hospi- 
tality ; its generous impulse is the instinct of his 
nature, and the very consciousness of tne act 
carries its recompense along with it. But, sir, 
there are sensations excited by an allusion in your 
toast, under the influence of which silence would 
be impossible. To be associated with Mr. Payne 
must be, to any one who regards private virtues 
and personal accomplishments, a source of peculiar 
pride ; and that feeling is not a little enhanced in 
me by a recollection of the country to which we 
are indebted for his qualifications. Indeed, the 
mention of America has never failed to fill me 
with the most lively emotions. In my earliest 
7 



50 SPEECH 

infancy, that tender season when impressions, at 
once the most permanent and the most powerful, 
are likely to be excited, the story of her then recent 
struggle raised a throb in every heart that loved 
liberty, and wrung a reluctant tribute even from 
discomfited oppression. 1 saw her spurning alike 
the luxuries that would enervate, and the legions 
that would intimidate; dashing from her lips the 
poisoned cup of European servitude ; and, through 
all the vicissitudes of her protracted conflict, dis- 
playing a magnanimity that defied misfortuue, and 
a moderation that gave new grace to victory. It 
was the first vision of my childhood ; it will de- 
scend with me to the grave. But if, as a man, I 
venerate the mention of America, what must be 
my feelings towards her as an Irishman. Never, 
oh never, while memory remains, can Ireland 
forget the home of her emigrant, and the asylum 
of her exile. No matter whether tfcffcir sorrows 
sprung from the errors of enthusiasm, or the re- 
alities of suffering, from fancy or infliction ; that 
must be reserved for the scrutiny of those whom 
the lapse of time shall acquit of partiality. It is 
for the men of other ages to investigate and record 
it; but surely it is for the men of every age to hail 
the hospitality that received the shelterless,and love 
the feeling that befriended the unfortunate. Search 
creation round, where can you find a country that 
presents so sublime a view, so interesting an anti- 
cipation ? What noble institutions ! What a com- 
prehensive policy ! What a wise equalisation of 
every political advantage ! The oppressed of all 
Countries, the martyrs of every creed, the innocent 
victim of despotic arrogance or superstitious phren- 
zy, may there find refuge ; his industry encouraged, 
his piety respected, his ambition animated ; with 



AT DINAS ISLAND. 51 

no restraint but those laws which are the same to 
all, and no distinction but that which his merit 
may originate. Who can deny that the existence 
of such a country presents a subject for human 
congratulation ! Who can deny that its gigantic 
advancement offers a field for the most rational 
conjecture ! At the end of the very next cen- 
tury, if she proceeds as she seems to promise, 
what a wondrous spectacle may she not exhibit ! 
Who shall say for what purpose a mysterious 
Providence may not have designed her ! Who 
shall say that when, in its follies or its crimes, 
the old world may have interred all the pride of 
its power, and all the pomp of its civilization, 
human nature may not find its destined renovation 
in the new ! For myself, I have no doubt of it. I 
have not the least doubt that when our temples 
and our trophies shall have mouldered into dust — 
when the gi#ries of our name shall be but the 
legend of tradition, and the light of our achieve- 
ments only live in song ; philosophy will rise again 
in the sky of her Franklin, and glory rekindle at 
the urn of her Washington. Is this the vision of 
a romantic fancy ? Is it even improbable ? Is it 
half so improbable as the events which for the last 
twenty years have rolled like successive tides over 
the surface of the European world, each erasing 
the impression that preceded it ? Thousands 
upon thousands, sir, I know there are, who will 
consider this opposition as wild and whimsical; 
but they have dwelt with little reflection upon 
the records of the past. They have but ill ob- 
served the never-ceasing progress of national 
rise and national ruin. They form their judg- 
ment on the deceitful stability of the present 
hour, never considering the innumerable monar- 



52 SPEECH 

chies and republics, in former days, apparently 
as permanent, their very existence become now 
the subjects of speculation, I had almost said of 
scepticism. I appeal to history ! Tell me, thou 
reverend chronicler of the grave, can all the illu- 
sions of ambition realized, can all the wealth of 
an universal commerce, can all the achievements 
of successful heroism, or alHhe establishments of 
this world's wisdom, secure to empire the perma- 
nency of its possessions ? Alas. Troy thought so 
once, yet the land of Priam lives only in song ! 
Thebes thought so once, yet her hundred gates 
have crumbled, and her very tombs are but as the 
dust they were vainly intended to commemorate ! 
So thought Palmyra — where is she ? So thought 
Persepolis, and now — 

" Yon waste, where roaming lions howl, 
Yon aisle, where moans the gray-eyed o\|Jg» 
Shows the proud Persian's great abode, 
Where sceptred once, an earthly god, 
His power-clad arm controlled each hnppier clime, 
"Where sports the warbling muse, and fancy soars sublime." 

So thought the country of Demosthenes and the 
Spartan, yet Leonid as is trampled by the timid 
slave, and Athens insulted by the servile, mind- 
less, and enervate Ottoman ! In his hurried march, 
Time has but looked at their imagined immortali- 
ty, and all its vanities, from the palace to the 
tomb, have, with their ruins, erased the very im- 
pression of his footsteps! The days of their glory 
are as if they had never been ; and the island that 
was then a speck, rude and neglected in the bar- 
ren ocean, now rivals the ubiquity of their com- 
merce, the glory of their arms, the fame of their 
philosophy, the eloquence of their senate, and the 



AT DINAS ISLAND. 53 

inspiration of their bards ! Who shall say, then, 
contemplating the past, that England, proud and 
potent as she appears, may not one day be what 
Athens is, and the young America yet soar to be 
what Athens was ! Who shall say, when the Eu- 
ropean column shall have mouldered, and the night 
of barbarism obscured its very ruins, that that 
mighty continent may not emerge from the horizon, 
to rule for its time sovereign of the ascendant ! 

Such, sir, is the natural progress of human 
operations, and such the unsubstantial mockery 
of human pride. But I should, perhaps, apologize 
for this digression. The tombs are at best a sad 
although an instructive subject. At all events, 
they are ill suited to such an hour as this. I shall 
endeavouj to atone for it, by turning to a theme 
which tombs cannot inurn or revolution altar. It 
is the custom of your board, and a noble one it is, 
to deck the cup of the gay with the garland of the 
great; and surely, even in the eyes of its deity, 
his grape is not the less lovely when glowing be- 
neath the foliage of the palm-tree and the myrtle. 
Allow me to add one flower to the chaplet, which 
though it sprang in America, is no exotic. Virtue 
planted it, and it is naturalized every where. I 
see you anticipate me — I see you concur with me, 
that{it matters very little what immediate spot 
may be the birth-place of such a man as Washing- 
ton. No people can claim, no country can ap- 
propriate him; the boon of Providence to the 
human race, his fame is eternity, and his residence 
creation. Though it was the defeat of our arms, 
and the disgrace of our policy, I almost bless the 
convulsion in which he had his origin. If the 
heavens thundered and the earth rocked, jet^ 
when the storm passed, how pure was the climate 



1 



54 SPEECH 

that it cleared ; how bright in the brow of the 
firmament was the planet which it revealed to us ! 
In the production of Washington, it does really 
appear as if nature was endeavouring to improve 
upon herself, and that all the virtues of the ancient 
world were but so many studies preparatory to the 
patriot of the new. Individual instances no doubt 
there were; splendid exemplifications of some 
single qualification: Cesar was merciful, Scipio 
was continent, Hannibal was patient ; but it was 
reserved for Washington to blend them all in one, 
and like the lovely chef tfceuvre of the Grecian 
artist, to exhibit in one glow of associated beauty, 
the pride of every model, and the perfection of 
every master. As a general, he marshalled the 
peasant into a veteran, and supplied by discipline 
the absence of experience ; as a statesman, he en- 
larged the policy of the cabinet into the most com- 
prehensive system of general advantage ; and such 
was the wisdom of his views, and the philosophy 
of his counsels, that to the soldier and the states- 
man he almost added the character of the sage ! 
A conqueror, he was untainted with the crime of 
blood ; a revolutionist, he was free from any stain 
of treason ; for aggression commenced the contest, 
and his country called him to the command. — 
Liberty unsheathed his sword, necessity stained, 
victory returned it. If he had paused here, history 
might have doubted what station to assign him, 
whether at the head of her citizens or her soldiers, 
her heroes or her patriots. But the last glorious 
act crowns his career, and banishes all hesitation. 
Who, like Washington, after having emancipated 
an hemisphere, resigned its crown, and preferred 
the retirement of domestic life to the adoration of 
a land he might be almost said to have created ! 



AT DINAS ISLAND. 55 



" How shall we rank thee upon Glory's page, 
Thou more than soldier and just less than sage ; 
All thou hast been reflects less fame on thee, 
Far less than all thou hast forborne to be 1" 

Such, sir, is the testimony of one not to be ac- 
cused of partiality in his estimate of America. — 
Happy, proud America ! the lightnings of heaven 
yielded to your philosophy ! The temptations of 
earth could not seduce your patriotism ! ) 

I have the honour, sir, of proposing to you 
as a toast, The immortal memory of George 
Washington ! 



DELIVERED AT 

AN AGGREGATE MEETING 



OF 



THE ROMAN CATHOLICS 



OF THE COUNTY AND CITY OF 



DUBLIN. 



Having taken, in the discussions on your ques- 
tion, such humble share as was allotted to my sta- 
tion and capacity, I may be permitted to offer my 
ardent congratulations at the proud pinnacle on 
which it this day reposes. After having combated 
calumnies the most atrocious, sophistries the most 
plausible, and perils the most appalling, that slan- 
der could invent, or ingenuity devise, or power ar- 
ray against you, I at length behold the assembled 
rank and wealth and talent of the Catholic body! 
offering to the Legislature that appeal which can- 
not be rejected, if there be a Power in heaven tol 
redress injury, or a spirit on earth to administer | 
justice. No matter what may be the deprecia- 
tions of faction or of bigotry ; this earth neveri 
presented a more ennobling spectacle than that 
of a christian country suffering for her religion] 
with the patience of a martyr, and suing for her lib- 
erties with the expostulations of a philosopher -, re- 



SPEECH AT DUBLIN. 57 

claiming the bad by her piety ; refuting the big- 
oted by her practice; wielding the Apostle's 
weapons in the patriot's cause, and at length, la- 
den with chains and with laurels, seeking from 
the country she had saved the constitution she 
had shielded ! Little did I imagine, that in such a 
state of your cause, we should be called together 
to counteract the impediments to its success, cre- 
ated not by its enemies, but by those supposed to 
be its friends. It is a melancholy occasion ; but 
melancholy as it is, it must be met, and met with 
the fortitude of men struggling in the sacred cause 
of liberty. I do not allude to the proclamation of 
your board; of that board I never was a member, 
so I can speak impartially. It contained much 
talent, some learning, many virtues. It was 
valuable on that account ; but it was doubly 
valuable as being a vehicle for the individual senti- 
ments of any catholic, and for the aggregate sen- 
timents of every catholic. Those who seceded 
from it, do not remember that, individually, they 
are nothing ; that as a body, they are every thing. 
It is not this wealthy slave, or that titled sycophant, 
whom the bigots dread, or the parliament respects! 
No, it is the body, the numbers, the rank, the pro- 
perty, the genius, the perseverance, the education, 
but, above all, the union of the catholics. I am 
far from defending every measure of the board — 
perhaps I condemn some of its measures even 
more than those who have seceded from it ; but is 
it a reason, if a general makes one mistake, that 
his followers are to desert him, especially when 
the contest is for all that is dear or valuable ? No 
doubt the board had its errors. Show me the 
human institution which has not. Let the man, 
then, who denounces it, prove himself superior ta 
8 



58 SPEECH • 

humanity, before he triumphs in his accusation, 
I am sorry for its suppression. When I consider 
the animals who are in office around us, the act 
does not surprise me; but I confess, even from 
them, the manner did and the time chosen did, 
most sensibly. I did not expect it on the very 
hour when the news of universal peace was first 
promulgated, and on the anniversary of the only 
British monarch's birth, who ever gave a boon to 
this distracted country. 

You will excuse this digression, rendered indeed 
in some degree necessary. I shall now confine 
myself exclusively to your resolution, which deter- 
mines on the immediate presentation of your pe- 
tition, and censures the neglect of any discussion 
on it by your advocates during the last session of 
parliament. You have a right to demand most 
fully the reasons of any man who dissents from 
Mr. G rattan. I will give you mine explicitly. — 
But I shall first state the reasons which he has 
given for the postponement of your question. 1 
shall do so out of respect to him, if indeed it can 
be called respect, to quote those sentiments, which 
on their very mention must excite your ridicule. 
Mr. Grattan presented your petition, and, on mov- 
ing that it should lie where so many preceding 
ones have lain, namely, on the table, he declared it 
to be his intention to move for no discussion. — 
Here, in the first place, I think Mr. Grattan wrong; 
he got that petition, if not on the express, at least 
on the implied condition of having it immediately 
discussed. There was not a man at the aggregate 
meeting at which it was adopted, who did not 
expect a discussion on the \ery first opportunity. 
Mr. Grattan, however, was angry at " suggestions." 
I do not think Mr. Grattan, of all men, had any 



AT DUBLIN. 59 

right to be so angry at receiving that which every 
English member was willing to receive, and was 
actually receiving from any English corn-factor. 
Mr. Grattan was also angry at our " violence." 
Neither do I think he had any occasion to be so 
squeamish at what he calls our violence. There 
was a day, when Mr. Grattan would not have 
spurned our suggestions, and there was also a day 
when he was fifty-fold more intemperate than any 
of his oppressed countrymen, whom he now holds 
up to the English people as so unconstitutionally 
violent. A pretty way, forsooth, for your advocate 
to commence conciliating a foreign auditory in 
favour of your petition. Mr. Grattan, however, 
has fulfilled his own prophecy, that "an oak of 
the forest is too old to be transplanted at fifty," 
and our fears that an Irish native would soon lose 
its raciness in an English atmosphere. u It is not 
my intention," says he, " to move for a discussion 
at present." Why ? " Great obstacles have been 
removed." That's his first reason. " I am how- 
ever," says he, " still ardent." Ardent ! Why it 
strikes me to be a very novel kind of ardour, which 
toils till it has removed every impediment, and 
then pauses at the prospect of its victory ! " And I 
am of opinion," he continues, " that any immediate 
discussion would be the height of precipitation :" 
that is, after having removed the impediments, he 
pauses in his path, declaring he is " ardent ;" and 
after centuries of suffering, when you press for a 
discussion, he protests that he considers you mon- 
strously precipitate ! Now is not that a fair trans- 
lation ? Why really if we did not know Mr. Grat- 
tan, we should be almost tempted to think that he 
was quoting from the ministry. With the exception 
of one or two plain, downright, sturdy, unblushing 



60 SPEECH 

bigots, who opposed you because you were chris- 
tians, and declared they did so, this was the cant 
of every man who affected liberality. " Oh, I 
declare, 1 ' they say, " they may not be cannibals, 
though they are catholics, and I would be very 
glad to vote for them, but this is no feme." " Oh 
no," says Bragge Bathurst, " it's no time. What ! 
in time of war ! Why it looks like bullying us !" 
Very well : next comes the peace, and what say 
our friends the opposition ? " Oh ! I declare 
peace is no feme, it looks so like persuading us." 
For my part, serious as the subject is, it affects 
me with the very same ridicule with which I see I 
have so unconsciously affected you. I will tell you 
a story of which it reminds me. It is told of the 
celebrated Charles Fox. Far be it from me, how- 
ever, to mention that name with levity. As he 
was a great man, I revere him ; as he was a good 
man, I love him. He had as wise a head as ever 
paused to deliberate ; he had as sweet a tongue as 
ever gave the words of wisdom utterance; and he 
had an heart so stamped with the immediate im- 
press of the divinity, that its very errors might be 
traced to the success of its benevolence I had 
almost forgot the story. Fox was a man of genius, 
of course he was poor. Poverty is a reproach 
to no man ; to such a man as Fox, I think it was 
a pride; for if he chose to traffic with his princi- 
ples; if Ac chose to gamble with his conscience, 
how easily might he' have been rich ? I guessed 
your answer. It would be hard, indeed, if you did 
not believe that in England talents might find a 
purchaser, who have seen in Ireland how easily a 
blockhead may swindle himself into preferment. — 
Juvenal says that the greatest misfortune attendant 
upon poverty is ridicule. Fox found out a greater — 



AT DUBLIN. 61 

debt. The Jews called on him for payment. « Ah, 
my dear friends," says Fox, " I admit the principle; 
I owe you money, but what time is this, when 1 am 
going upon business." Just so our friends admit the 
principle ; they owe you emancipation, but war's no 
time. Well, the Jews departed just as you did. — 
They returned to the charge : " What ! (cries Fox,) 
is this a time, when I am engaged on an appoint- 
ment ?" What ! say our friends, is this a time when 
all the world's at peace. The Jews departed ; but 
the end of it was, Fox, with his secretary, Mr. Hare, 
who was as much in debt as he was, shut them- 
selves up in garrison. The Jews used to surround 
his habitation at day-light, and poor Fox regularly 
put his head out of the window, with this question, 
" Gentlemen, are you .Far-hunting or Hare-hunting 
this morning ?" His pleasantry mitigated the very 
Jews. " Well, well, Fox, now you have always ad- 
mitted the principle, but protested against the time, 
we will give you your own time, only just fix 
some final day for our repayment." " Ah, my 
dear Moses," replies Fox, " now this is friendly. I 
will take you at your word ; I will fix a day, and 
as it's to be a final day, what would you think of 
the day of judgment?" That will be too busy 
a day with us." " Well, well, in order to accom- 
modate all parties, let us settle the day after." — 
Thus it is, between the war inexpediency of 
Bragge Bathurst, and the peace inexpediency of 
Mr. Grattan, you may expect your emancipation 
bill pretty much about the time that Fox settled 
for the payment of his creditors. Mr. Grattan, 
however, though he scorned to take your sugges- 
tions, took the suggestions of your friends. " I 
have consulted," says he, "my right honourable 
friends !" Oh, all friends, all right honourable ! 



62 SPEECH 

Now this it is to trust the interests of a people into 
the hands of a party. You must know, in par- 
liamentary parlance, these right honourable friends 
mean a party. There are few men so contemp- 
tible, as not to have a party. The minister has 
his party. The opposition have their party. The 
saints, for there are saints in the house of com- 
mons, lucus a non lucendo,— the saints have their 
party. Every one has his party. I had forgotten — 
Ireland has no party. Such are the reasons, if 
reasons they can be called, which Mr. Grattan has 
given for the postponement of your question ; and 
I sincerely say, if they had come from any other 
man, I would not have condescended to have given 
them an answer. He is indeed reported to have 
said that he had others in reserve, which he did 
not think it necessary to detail. If those which 
he reserved were like those which he delivered, 
I do not dispute the prudence of his keeping them 
to himself; but as we have not the gift of pro- 
phecy, it is not easy for us to answer them, until 
he shall deign to give them to his constituents. 

Having dealt thus freely with the alleged rea- 
sons for the postponement, it is quite natural that 
you should require what my reasons are for urging 
the discussion. I shall give them candidly. They 
are at once so simple and explicit, it is quite im- 
possible that the meanest capacity amongst you 
should not comprehend them. I would urge the 
instant discussion, because discussion has always 
been of use to you ; because, upon every discus- 
sion you have gained converts out of doors ; and 
because, upon every discussion within the doors of 
parliament, your enemies have diminished, and 
your friends have increased. Now, is not that a 
strong reason for continuing your discussions ? — 



AT DUBLIN. 63 

This may be assertion. Aye, but I will prove 
it. In order to convince you of the argument 
as referring to the country, I need but point to 
the state of the public mind now upon the subject, 
and that which existed in the memory of the 
youngest. I myself remember the blackest and 
the basest universal denunciations against your 
creed, and the vilest anathemas against any man 
who would grant you an iota. JYoiti, every man 
affects to be liberal, and the only question with 
some is the tune of the concessions ; with others, 
the extent of the concessions ; with many, the 
nature of the securities you should afford ; whilst 
a great multitude, in which I am proud to class 
myself, think that your emancipation should be 
immediate, universal, and unrestricted. Such has 
been the progress of the human mind out of doors, 
in consequence of the powerful eloquence, argu- 
ment, and policy elicited by those discussions 
which your friends now have, for the first time, 
found out to be precipitate. Now let us see what 
has been the effect produced within the doors of 
parliament. For twenty years you were silent, 
and of course you were neglected. The conse- 
quence was most natural. Why should parliament 
grant privileges to men who did not think those 
privileges worth the solicitation ? Then rose 
your agitators, as they are called by those bigots 
who are trembling at the effect of their arguments 
on the community, and who, as a matter of course, 
take every opportunity of calumniating them. Ever 
since that period your cause has been advancing. 
Take the numerical proportions in the house of 
commons on each subsequent discussion. In 1805, 
the first time it was brought forward in the im- 
perial legislature, and it was then aided by the 



64 SPEECH 

powerful eloquence of Fox, there was a majority 
against even taking your claims into consideration, 
of no less a number than 212. It was an appalling 
omen. In 1 808, however, on the next discussion, 
that majority was diminished to 163. In 1810 it 
decreased to 104. In 1811 it dwindled to 64, and 
at length in 1812, on the motion of Mr. Canning, 
and it is not a little remarkable that the first suc- 
cessful exertion in your favour was made by an 
English member, your enemies fled the field, and 
you had the triumphant majority to support you of 
129 ! Now, is not this demonstration ? What be- 
comes now of those who say discussion has not 
been of use to you ? But I need not have resorted 
to arithmetical calculation. Men become ashamed 
of combating with axioms. Truth is omnipotent, 
and must prevail; it forces its way with the fire 
and the precision of the morning sun-beam. Va- 
pours may impede the infancy of its progress; 
but the very resistance that would check only con- 
denses and concentrates it, until at length it goes 
forth in the fulness of its meridian, all life and 
light and lustre — the minutest objects visible in 
its refulgence. You lived for centuries on the 
vegetable diet and eloquent silence of this Pytha- 
gorean policy ; and the consequence was, when you 
thought yourselves mightily dignified, and mightily 
interesting, the whole world was laughing at your 
philosophy, and sending its aliens to take possession 
of your birth-right. I have given you a good 
reason for urging your discussion, by having shown 
you that discussion has always gained you pro- 
selytes. But is it the time ? says Mr. Grattan. 
Yes., sir, it is the time, peculiarly the time, unless 
indeed the great question of Irish liberty is to be 
reserved as a weapon in the hands of a party to wield 



AT DUBLIN. 65 

against the weakness of the British minister. But 
why should I delude you by talking about time ! 
Oh ! there will never be a time with Bigotry ! — 
She has no head, and cannot think ; she has no 
heart, and cannot feel ; when she moves, it is in 
wrath ; when she pauses, it is amid ruin ; her 
prayers are curses, her communion is death, her 
vengeance is eternity, her decalogue is written in 
the blood of her victims ; and if she stoops for a 
moment from her infernal flight, it is upon some 
kindred rock to whet her vulture fang for keener 
rapine, and replume her wing for a more san- 
guinary desolation! I appeal from this infernal, 
grave-stalled fury, I appeal to the good sense, to 
the policy, to the gratitude of England ; and I 
make my appeal peculiarly at this moment, when 
all the illustrious potentates of Europe are assem- 
bled together in the British capital, to hold the 
great festival of universal peace and universal 
emancipation. Perhaps when France, flushed 
with success, fired by ambition, and enfuriated by 
enmity ; her avowed aim an universal conquest, 
her means the confederated resources of the Con- 
tinent, her guide the greatest military genius a 
nation fertile in prodigies has produced — a man 
who seemed born to invest what had been regular, 
to defile what had been venerable, to crush what 
had been established, and to create, as if by a 
magic impulse, a fairy world, peopled by the 
paupers he had commanded into kings, and based 
by the thrones he had crumbled in his caprices — 
perhaps when such a power, so led, so organized, 
and so incited, was in its noon of triumph, the 
timid might tremble even at the charge that would 
save, or the concession that would strengthen. 
But now, — her allies faithless, her conquests de- 
9 



66 SPEECH 

spoiled, her territory dismembered, her legions 
defeated, her leader dethroned, and her reigning 
prince our ally by treaty, our debtor by gratitude, 
and our alienable friend by every solemn obli- 
gation of civilized society, — the objection is our 
strength, and the obstacle our battlement. Per- 
haps when the pope was in the power of our 
enemy, however slender the pretext, bigotry might 
have rested on it. The inference was false as to 
Ireland, and it was ungenerous as to Rome. The 
Irish catholic, firm in his faith, bows to the pontiff's 
spiritual supremacy, but he would spurn the pon- 
tiff's temporal interference. If, with the spirit of 
an earthly domination, he were to issue to-morrow 
his despotic mandate, catholic Ireland with one 
voice would answer him : " Sire, we bow with 
reverence to your spiritual mission : the de- 
scendant of saint Peter, we freely acknowledge 
you the head of our church, and the organ of 
our creed : but, sire, if we have a church, we 
cannot forget that we also have a country ; and 
when you attempt to convert your mitre into a 
crown, and your crozier into a sceptre, you de- 
grade the majesty of your high delegation, and 
grossly miscalculate upon our acquiescence. No 
foreign power shall regulate the allegiance which 
we owe to our sovereign ; it was the fault of our 
fathers that one pope forged our fetters ; it will be 
our own, if we allow them to be rivited by another." 
Such would be the answer of universal Ireland ; 
such was her answer to the audacious menial, who 
dared to dictate her unconditional submission to 
an act of parliament which emancipated by penal- 
ties, and redressed by insult. But, sir, it never 
would have entered into the contemplation of the 
pope to have assumed such an authority. His 



AT DUBLIN. 67 

character was a sufficient shield against the im- 
putation, and his policy must have taught him, 
that, in grasping at the shadow of a temporal 
power, he should but risk the reality of his eccle- 
siastical supremacy. Thus was parliament doubly 
guarded against a foreign usurpation. The people 
upon whom it was to act deprecate its authority, 
and the power to which it was imputed abhors its 
ambition ; the pope would not exert it if he could, 
and the people would not obey it if he did. Just 
precisely upon the same foundation rested the 
aspersions which were cast upon your creed. How 
did experience justify them ? Did Lord Welling- 
ton find that religious faith made any difference 
amid the thunder of the battle ? Did the Spanish 
soldier desert his colours because his General 
believed not in the real presence ? Did the brave 
Portuguese neglect his orders to negociate about 
mysteries ? Or what comparison did the hero 
draw between the policy of England and the piety 
of Spain, when at one moment he led the heterodox 
legions to victory, and the very next was obliged 
to fly from his own native flag, waving defiance 
on the walls of Burgos, where the Irish exile 
planted and sustained it ? What must he have 
felt when in a foreign land he was obliged to 
command brother against brother, to raise the 
sword of blood, and drown the cries of nature 
with the artillery of death ? What were the sen- 
sations of our haples exiles, when they recognized 
the features of their long-lost country ? when they 
heard the accents of the tongue they loved, or 
caught the cadence of the simple melody which 
once lulled them to sleep within a mother's arms, 
and cheered the darling circle they must behold 
no more ? Alas, how the poor banished heart 



68 SPEECH 

delights in the memory that song associates ! He 
heard it in happier days, when the parents he 
adored, the maid he loved, the friends of his soul, 
and the green fields of his infancy were round 
him; when his labours were illumined with the 
sun-shine of the heart, and his humble hut was a 
palace — for it was home. His soul is full, his eye 
suffused, he bends from the battlements to catch 
the cadence, when his death-shot, sped by a 
brother's hand, lays him in his grave — the victim 
of a code calling itself christian ! Who shall say, 
heart-rending as it is, this picture is from fancy ? 
Has it not occurred in Spain ? May it not, at this 
instant, be acting in America ? Is there any 
country in the universe, in which these brave 
exiles of a barbarous bigotry are not to be found 
refuting the calumnies that banished and rewarding 
the hospitality that received them ? Yet England, 
enlightened England, who sees them in every field 
of the old world and the new, defending the various 
flags of every faith, supports the injustice of her 
exclusive constitution, by branding upon them 
the ungenerous accusation of an exclusive creed ! 
England, the ally of catholic Portugal, the ally of 
catholic Spain, the ally of catholic France, the 
friend of the pope ! England, who seated a ca- 
tholic bigot in Madrid ! who convoyed a catholic 
Braganza to the Brazils ! who enthroned a ca- 
tholic Bourbon in Paris ! who guaranteed a ca- 
tholic establishment in Canada ! who gave a 
constitution to catholic Hanover ! England, who 
searches the globe for catholic grievances to re- 
dress, and catholic princes to restore, will not 
trust the catholic at home, who spends his blood 
and treasure in her service ! ! Is this generous ? 
Is this consistent ? Is it just ? Is it even politic ? 



AT DUBLIN. 69 

Is it the act of a wise country to fetter the ener- 
gies of an entire population ? is it the act of a 
christian country to do it in the name of God ? 
Is it politic in a government to degrade part of 
the body by which it is supported, or pious to 
make Providence a party to their degradation ? 
There are societies in England for discounte- 
nancing vice ; there are christian associations 
for distributing the Bible ; there are volunteer 
missions for converting the heathen : but Ireland, 
the seat of their government, the stay of their 
empire, their associate by all the ties of nature 
and of interest; how has she benefited by the 
gospel of which they boast ? Has the sweet spirit 
of Christianity appeared on our plains in the cha- 
racter of her precepts, breathing the air and robed 
in the beauties of the world to which she would 
lead us ; with no argument but love, no look but 
peace, no wealth but piety ; her creed compre- 
hensive as the arch of heaven, and her charities 
bounded but by the circle of creation ? Or, has 
she been let loose amongst us, in form a fury, and 
in act a demon, her heart festered with the fires 
of hell, her hands clotted with the gore of earth, 
withering alike in her repose and in her progress, 
her path apparent by the print of blood, and her 
pause denoted by the expanse of desolation ? Gos- 
pel of Heaven ! is this thy herald ? God of the 
universe ! is this thy hand-maid ? Christian of 
the ascendancy ! how would you answer the dis- 
believing infidel, if he asked you, should he estimate 
the christian doctrine by the christian practice ? 
if he dwelt upon those periods when the human 
victim writhed upon the altar of the peaceful 
Jesus, and the cross, crimsoned with his blood, 
became little better than a stake for the sacrifice 



70 SPEECH 

of his votaries ; if he pointed to Ireland, where 
the word of peace was the war-whoop of destruc- 
tion ; where the son was bribed against the father, 
and the plunder of the parent's property was made 
a bounty on the recantation of the parent's creed ; 
where the march of the human mind was stayed 
in his name who had inspired it with reason, and 
any effort to liberate a fellow-creature from his in- 
tellectual bondage was sure to be recompensed 
by the dungeon or the scaffold ; where ignorance 
was so long a legislative command, and piety a 
legislative crime ; where religion was placed as a 
barrier between the sexes, and the intercourse of 
nature was pronounced felony by law ; where 
God's worship was an act of stealth, and his min- 
isters sought amongst the savages of the woods 
that sanctuary which a nominal civilization had 
denied them ; where, at this instant, conscience 
is made to blast every hope of genius, and every 
energy of ambition, and the catholic who would 
rise to any station of trust must, in the face of his 
country, deny the faith of his fathers ; where the 
preferments of earth are only to be obtained by 
the forfeiture of Heaven ? 

" Unprized are her sons till they learn to betray, 
Undistinguish'd they live if they shame not their sires ; 
And the torch that would light them to dignity's way, 
Must be caught from the pile where their country expires !' v% 

How, let me ask, how would the christian zealot 
droop beneath this catalogue of christian qualifi- 
cations ? But, thus it is, when sectarians differ 
on account of mysteries ; in the heat and acrimony 
of the causeless contest, religion, the glory of one 
world, and the guide of another, drifts from the 
splendid circle in which she shone, in the comet- 



AT DUBLIN. 71 

maze of uncertainty and error. The code against 
which you petition, is a vile compound of impiety 
and impolicy : impiety, because it debases in the 
name of God; impolicy, because it disqualifies 
under pretence of government. If we are to 
argue from the services of protestant Ireland^ to 
the losses sustained by the bondage of catholic 
Ireland, and I do not see why we should not, the 
state which continues such a system is guilty of 
little less than a political suicide. It matters little 
where the protestant Irishman has been employed ; 
whether with Burke wielding the senate with his 
eloquence, with Castlereagh guiding the cabinet 
by his counsels, with Barry enriching the arts by 
his pencil, with Swift adorning literature by his 
genius, with Goldsmith or with Moore softening 
the heart by their melody, or with Wellington 
chaining victory at his car, he may boldly chal- 
lenge the competition of the world. Oppressed 
and impoverished as our country is, every muse 
has cheered, and every art adorned, and every 
conquest crowned her. Plundered, she was not 
poor, for her character enriched ; attainted, she 
was not titleless, for her services ennobled ; lite- 
rally outlawed into eminence and fettered into 
fame, the fields of her exile were immortalized by 
her deeds, and the links of her chain became de- 
corated by her laurels. Is this fancy, or is it fact ? 
Is there a department in the state in which Irish 
genius does not possess a predominance ? Is there 
a conquest which it does not achieve, or a dignity 
which it does not adorn ? At this instant, is there 
a country in the world to which England has not 
deputed an Irishman as her representative ? She 
has sent Lord Moira to India, Sir Gore Ouseley 
to Ispahan, Lord Stuart to Vienna, Lord Castle- 



72 SPEECH 

reagh £o congress, Sir Henry Wellesley to Madrid, 
Mr. Canning to Lisbon, Lord Stranglord to the 
Brazils, Lord Clancarty to Holland, Lord Wel- 
lington to Paris — all Irishmen ! Whether it results 
from accident or from merit, can there be a more 
cutting sarcasm on the policy of England ! Is it 
not directly saying to her, " Here is a country 
from one-fifth of whose people you depute the 
agents of your most august delegation, the re- 
maining four-fifths of which, by your odious 
bigotry, you incapacitate from any station of office 
or of trust !" It is adding all that is weak in im- 
policy to all that is wicked in ingratitude. What 
is her apology ? Will she pretend that the Deity 
imitates her injustice, and incapacitates the intel- 
lect as she has done the creed ? After making 
Providence a pretence for her code, will she also 
make it a party to her crime, and arraign the 
universal spirit of partiality in his dispensations ? 
Is she not content with Him as a protestant God, 
unless He also consents to become a catholic 
demon ? But, if the charge were true, if the 
Irish catholic were imbruted and debased, Ire- 
land's conviction would be England's crime, and 
your answer to the bigot's charge should be the 
bigot's conduct. What, then ! is this the result 
of six centuries of your government? Is this the 
connexion which you called a benefit to Ireland ? 
Have your protecting laws so debased them, that 
the very privilege of reason is worthless in their 
possession ? Shame ! oh, shame ! to the govern- 
ment where the people are barbarous ! The day 
is not distant when they made the education of a 
catholic a crime, and yet they arraign the catho- 
lic for ignorance ! The day is not distant when 
they proclaimed the celebration of the catholic 



AT DUBLIN. 73 

worship a felony, and jet they complain that the 
catholic is not moral ! What folly ! Is it to be 
expected that the people are to emerge in a mo- 
ment from the stupor of a protracted degradation ? 
There is not perhaps to be traced upon the map 
of national misfortune a spot so truly and so 
tediously deplorable as Ireland. Other lands, no 
doubt, have had their calamities. To the horrors 
of revolution, the miseries of despotism, the 
scourges of anarchy, they have in their turns been 
subject. But it has been only in their turns; the 
visitations of wo, though severe, have not been 
eternal ; the hour of probation, or of punishment, 
has passed away; and the tempest, after having 
emptied the vial of its wrath, has given place to 
the serenity of the calm and of the sunshine. — 
Has this been the case with respect to our misera- 
ble country ? Is there, save in the visionary world 
of tradition — is there in the progress, either of 
record or recollection, one verdant spot in the 
desert of our annals where patriotism can find 
repose or philanthropy refreshment ? Oh, indeed, 
posterity will pause with wonder on the melan- 
choly page which shall portray the story of a 
people amongst whom the policy of man has 
waged an eternal warfare with the providence of 
God, blighting into deformity all that was beau- 
teous, and into famine all that was abundant. I 
repeat, however, the charge to be false. The 
catholic mind in Ireland has made advances 
scarcely to be hoped in the short interval of its 
partial emancipation. But what encouragement 
has the catholic parent to educate his offspring ? 
Suppose he sends his son, the hope of his pride 
and the wealth of his heart, into the army ; the 
child justifies his parental anticipation; he is moral 
10 



74 SPEECH 

in his habits, he is strict in his discipline, he fe 
daring in the field, and temperate at the board, 
and patient in the camp ; the first in the charge, 
the last in the retreat ; with an hand to achieve, 
and an head to guide, and a temper to conciliate ; 
he combines the skill of Wellington with the cle- 
mency of Cesar and the courage of Turenne — 
yet he can never rise — he is a catholic ! — Take 
another instance. Suppose him at the bar. He 
has spent his nights at the lamp, and his days in 
the forum ; the rose has withered from his cheek 
mid the drudgery of form ; the spirit has fainted 
in his heart mid the analysis of crime ; he has 
foregone the pleasures of his youth, and the asso- 
ciates of his heart, and all the fairy enchantments 
in which fancy may have wrapped him. Alas ! for 
what? Though genius flashed from his eye, and 
eloquence rolled from his lips ; though he spoke 
with the tongue of Tully, and argued with the 
learning of Coke, and thought with the purity of 
Fletcher, he can never rise — he is a catholic ! 
Merciful God ! what a state of society is this in 
which thy worship is interposed as a disqualifi- 
cation upon thy Providence ? Behold, in a word, 
the effects of the code against which you petition ; 
it disheartens exertion, it disqualifies merit, it 
debilitates the state, it degrades the Godhead, it 
disobeys Christianity, it makes religion an article 
of traffic, and its founder a monopoly ; and for 
ages it has reduced a country, blessed with every 
beauty of nature and every bounty of Providence, 
to a state unparalleled under any constitution pro- 
fessing to be free, or any government pretending 
to be civilized. To justify this enormity, there is 
now no argument. Now is the time to concede 
with dignity that which was never denied without 



AT DUBLIN. 75 

injustice. Who can tell how soon we may require 
all the zeal of our united population to secure our 
very existence? Who can argue upon the con- 
tinuance of this calm ? Have we not seen the 
labour of ages overthrown, and the whim of a day 
erected on its ruins; establishments the most 
solid withering at a word, and visions the most 
whimsical realized at a wish ; crowns crumbled, 
discords confederated, kings become vagabonds, 
and vagabonds made kings at the capricious phren- 
zy of a village adventurer ? Have we not seen 
the whole political and moral world shaking as 
with an earthquake, and shapes the most fantastic 
and formidable and frightful heaved into life by 
the quiverings of the convulsion ? The storm has 
passed over us ; England has survived it ; if she is 
wise, her present prosperity will be but the hand- 
maid to her justice ; if she is pious, the peril she 
has escaped will be but the herald of her expi- 
ation. Thus much have I said in the way of 
argument to the enemies of your question. Let 
me offer an humble opinion to its friends. The 
first and almost the sole request which an advo- 
cate would make to you is, to remain united ; rely 
on it, a divided assault can never overcome a con- 
solidated resistance. I allow that an educated 
aristocracy are as an head to the people, without 
which they cannot think ; but then the people 
are as hands to the aristocracy, without which it 
cannot act. Concede, then, a little to even each 
other's prejudices; recollect that individual sacri- 
fice is universal strength; and can there be a 
nobler altar than the altar of your country ? This 
same spirit of conciliation should be extended 
even to your enemies. If England will not con- 
sider that a brow of suspicion is but a bad accom- 



76 SPEECH 

paniment to an act of grace ; if she will not allow 
that kindness may make those friends whom even 
oppression could not make foes ; if she will not 
confess that the best security she can have from 
Ireland is by giving Ireland an interest in her 
constitution ; still, since her power is the shield of 
her prejudices, you should concede where you 
cannot conquer ; it is wisdom to yield when it has 
become hopeless to combat. 

There is but one concession which I would 
never advise, and which, were I a catholic, I 
would never make. You will perceive that I 
allude to any interference with your clergy. That 
was the crime of Mr. Grattan's security bill. It 
made the patronage of your religion the ransom 
for your liberties, and bought the favour of the 
crown by the surrender of the church. It is a 
vicious principle, it is the cause of all your sor- 
rows. If there had not been a state-establishment 
there would not have been a catholic bondage — 
By that incestuous conspiracy between the altar 
and the throne, infidelity has achieved a more 
extended dominion than by all the sophisms of 
her philosophy, or all the terrors of her persecu- 
tion. It makes God's apostle a court-appendage, 
and God himself a court-purveyor ; it carves the 
cross into a chair of state, where, with grace on 
his brow and gold in his hand, the little perisha- 
ble puppet of this world's vanity makes Omnipo- 
tence a menial to its power, and eternity a pander 
to its profits. Be not a party to it. As you have 
spurned the temporal interference of the pope, 
resist the spiritual jurisdiction of the crown. As 
1 do not think that you, on the one hand, could 
surrender the patronage of your religion to the 
king, without the most unconscientious compro- 



AT DUBLIN. If 

mise, so, on the other hand, I do not think the 
king could ever conscientiously receive it. Sup- 
pose he receives it ; if he exercises it for the 
advantage of jour church, he directly violates the 
coronation-oath which binds him to the exclusive 
interests of the church of England ; and if he 
does not intend to exercise it for your advantage, 
to what purpose does he require from you its 
surrender ? But what pretence has England for 
'this interference with your religion ? It was the 
religion of her most glorious era, it was the reli- 
gion of her most ennobled patriots, it was the 
religion of the wisdom that framed her constitu- 
tion, it was the religion of the valour that achieved 
it, it would have been to this day the religion of 
her empire had it not been for the lawless lust of 
a murderous adulterer. What right has she to 
suspect your church ? When her thousand sects 
were brandishing the fragments of their faith 
against each other, and Christ saw his garment, 
without a seam, a piece of patch-work for every 
mountebank who figured in the pantomime ; when 
her Babel temple rocked at every breath of her 
Priestleys and her Paynes, Ireland, proof against 
the menance of her power, was proof also against 
the perilous impiety of her example. But if as 
catholics you should guard it, the palladium of 
your creed, not less as Irishmen should you prize 
it, the relic of your country. Deluge after deluge 
has desolated her provinces. The monuments of 
art which escaped the barbarism of one invader 
fell beneath the still more savage civilization of 
another. Alone, amid the solitude, your temple 
stood like some majestic monument amid the de- 
sert of antiquity, just in its proportions, sublime 
in its associations, rich in the virtue of its saints, 



78 PETITION. 

cemented by the blood of its martyrs, pouring 
forth for ages the unbroken series of its venerable 
hierarchy, and only the more magnificent from 
the ruins by which it was surrounded. Oh ! do 
not for any temporal boon betray the great prin- 
ciples which are to purchase you an eternity ! 
Here, from your very sanctuary, — here, with my 
hand on the endangered altars of your faith, in the 
name of that God, for the freedom of whose wor- 
ship we are so nobly struggling, — I conjure you, let 
no unholy hand profane the sacred ark of your re- 
ligion ; preserve it inviolate ; its light is " light from 
Heaven ;" follow it through all the perils of your 
journey ; and, like the fiery pillar of the captive 
Israel, it will cheer the desert of your bondage, and 
guide to the land of your liberation ! 



PETITION 

REFERRED TO IW THE PRECEDING SPEECH, 

DRAWN BY MR. PHILLIPS AT THE REQUEST OF 
THE ROMAN CATHOLICS OF IRELAND. 

To the honourable the Commons of the United King- 
dom of Great Britain and Ireland, in parliament 
assembled : 

The humble petition of the Roman catholics of 
Ireland, whose names are undersigned on be- 
half of themselves, and others, professing the 
Roman catholic religion, 

Showeth, 

That we, the Roman catholic people of Ire- 
land, again approach the legislature with a 
statement of the grievances under which we la- 



PETITION". 79 

bour, and of which we most respectfully, but at 
the same time most firmly, solicit the effectual 
redress. Our wrongs are so notorious, and so 
numerous, that their minute detail is quite unne- 
cessary, and would indeed be impossible, were it 
deemed expedient. Ages of persecution on the 
one hand, and of patience on the other, sufficiently 
attest our sufferings and our submission. Privations 
have been answered only by petition, indignities by 
remonstrance, injuries by forgiveness. It has been 
a misfortune to have suffered for the sake of our 
religion ; but it has also been a pride to have borne 
the best testimony to the purity of our doctrine, by 
the meekness of our endurance. 

We have sustained the power which spurned us ; 
we have nerved the arm which smote us ; we have 
lavished our strength, our talent, and our treasures, 
and buoyed up, on the prodigal effusion of our 
young blood, the triumphant Ark of British Lib- 
erty. 

We approach, then, with confidence, an enlight- 
ened legislature ; in the 'name of Nature, we ask 
our rights as men ; in the name of the constitution, 
we ask our privileges as subjects ; in the name of 
God, we ask the sacred protection of unpersecuted 
piety as christians. 

Are securities required of us ? We offer them — 
the best securities a throne can have — the affections 
of a people. We offer faith that was never violated, 
hearts that were never corrupted, valour that never 
crouched. Every hour of peril has proved our al- 
legiance, and every field of Europe exhibits its ex- 
ample. 

We abjure all temporal authority, except that of 
our sovereign ; we acknowledge no civil pre-emi- 
nence, save that of our constitution ; and, for our 



80 



PETITION. 



lavish and voluntary expenditure, we only ask a 
reciprocity of benefits. 

Separating, as we do, our civil rights from our 
spiritual duties, we humbly desire that they may 
not be confounded. We " render unto Cesar the 
things that are Cesar's," but we must also "render 
unto God the things that are God's." Our church 
could not descend to claim a state-authority, nor 
do we ask for it a state-aggrandizement : — its hopes, 
its powers,and its pretensions, are of another world; 
and when we raise our hands most humbly to the 
state, our prayer is not, that the fetters may be 
transferred to the hands which are raised for us to 
Heaven. We would not erect a splendid shrine 
even to liberty on the ruins of the temple. 

In behalf, then, of five millions of a brave and 
loyal people, we call upon the legislature to anni- 
hilate the odious bondage which bows down the 
mental, physical, and moral energies of Ireland ; 
and, in the name of that gospel which breathes cha- 
rity towards all, we seek freedom of conscience for 
all the inhabitants of the British empire. 

May it therefore please this honourable house 
to abolish all penal and disabling laws, which in 
any manner infringe religious liberty, or restrict the 
free enjoyment of the sacred rights of conscience, 
within these realms. 

And your petitioners will ever pray. 



THE 



TO 

H. R. H. THE PRINCESS OF WALES 

DRAWN BY MR. PHILLIPS AT THE REQUEST OF 

THE ROMAN CATHOLICS 

OF IRELAND. 



May it please your Royal Highness, 

We, the Roman catholic people of Ireland, 
beg leave to offer our unfeigned congratula- 
tions on your providential escape from the con- 
spiracy which so lately endangered both your 
life and honour — a conspiracy, unmanly in its 
motives, unnatural in its object, and unworthy in 
its means — a conspiracy, combining so monstrous 
an union of turpitude and treason, that it is difficult 
to say, whether royalty would have suffered more 
from its success, than human nature has from its 
conception. Our allegiance is not less shocked 
at the infernal spirit, which would sully the diadem, 
by breathing on its most precious ornament, the 
virtue of its wearer, than our best feelings are at 
the inhospitable baseness, which would betray the 
innocence of a female in a land of strangers ! ! 

Deem it not disrespectful, illustrious lady, 
that, from a people proverbially ardent in the 
cause of the defenceless, the shout of virtuous con- 

n 



82 ADDRESS. 

gratulation should receive a feeble echo. Our 
harp has long been unused to tones of gladness, 
and our hills but faintly answer the unusual accent 
Your heart, however, can appreciate the silence 
indicted by suffering ; and ours, alas, feels but too 
acutely that the commiseration is sincere which 
flows from sympathy. 

Let us hope that, when congratulating virtue 
in your royal person, on her signal triumph over 
the perjured, the profligate, and the corrupt, we 
may also rejoice in the completion of its conse- 
quences. Let us hope that the society of your 
only child again solaces your dignified retirement ; 
and that, to the misfortune of being a widowed 
wife, is not added the pang of being a childless 
mother ! 

But if, madam, our hopes are not fulfilled ; 
if, indeed, the cry of an indignant and unanimous 
people is disregarded ; console yourself with the 
reflection, that, though your exiled daughter may 
not hear the precepts of virtue from your lips, 
she may at least study the practice of it in your 
example. 



A 

DELIVERED BY 

MR. PHILLIPS 

AT A PUBLIC DINNER GIVEN TO HIM 

BY THE 

FRIENDS OF CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY 
iif 

LIVERPOOL. 



Believe me, Mr. Chairman, I feel too sen- 
sibly the high and unmerited compliment you 
have paid me, to attempt any other return than 
the simple expression of my gratitude ; to be just, 
I must be silent ; but though the tongue is mute, 
my heart is much more than eloquent. The kind- 
ness of friendship, the testimony of any class, 
however humble, carries with it no trifling grati- 
fication ; but stranger as I am, to be so distin- 
guished in this great city, whose wealth is its least 
recommendation ; the emporium of commerce, 
liberality, and public spirit ; the birth-place of 
talent ; the residence of integrity ; the field where 
freedom seems to have rallied the last allies of her 
cause, as if, with the noble consciousness that, 
though patriotism could not wreath the laurel 
round her brow, genius should at least raise it 
over her ashes ; to be so distinguished, sir, and in 
such a place, does, I confess, inspire me with a 



84 SPEECH 

vanity which even a sense of my unimportance 
cannot entirely silence. Indeed, sir, the minis- 
terial critics of Liverpool were right. I have no 
claim to this enthusiastic welcome. But I cannot 
look upon this testimonial so much as a tribute to 
myself, as an omen to that country with whose 
fortunes the dearest sympathies of my soul are 
intertwined. Oh yes, I do foresee when she shall 
hear with what courtesy her most pretensionless 
advocate has been treated, how the same wind 
that wafts her the intelligence, will revive that 
flame within her, which the blood of ages has not 
been able to extinguish. It may be a delusive 
hope, but I am glad to grasp at any phantom that 
flits across the solitude of that country's deso- 
lation. On this subject you can scarely be igno- 
rant, for you have an Irishman resident amongst 
you, whom I am proud to call my friend ; whose 
fidelity to Ireland no absence can diminish ; who 
has at once the honesty to be candid, and the 
talent to be convincing. I need scarcely say I 
allude to Mr. Casey. I knew, sir, the statue was 
too striking to require a name upon the pedestal. 
Alas, Ireland has little now to console her, except 
the consciousness of having produced such men. 
It would be a reasonable adulation in me to de- 
ceive you. Six centuries of base misgovernment, 
of causeless, ruthless, and ungrateful persecution, 
have now reduced that country to a crisis, at 
which I know not whether the friend of humanity 
has most cause to grieve or to rejoice ; because I 
am not sure that the same feeling which prompts 
the tear at human sufferings, ought not to triumph 
in that increased infliction which may at length 
tire them out of endurance. I trust in God a 
change of system may in time anticipate the results 



AT LIVERPOOL. 85 

of desperation ; but you may quite depend on it, 
a period is approaching when, if penalty does not 
pause in the pursuit, patience will turn short on 
the pursuer. Can you wonder at it ? Contemplate 
Ireland during any given period of England's rule, 
and what a picture does she exhibit ! Behold her 
created in all the prodigality of nature ; with a 
soil that anticipates the husbandman's desires ; 
with harbours courting the commerce of the world ; 
with rivers capable of the most effective navigation ; 
with the ore of every metal struggling through her 
surface ; with a people, brave, generous, and in- 
tellectual, literally forcing their way through the 
disabilities of their own country into the highest 
stations of every other, and well rewarding the 
policy that promotes them, by achievements the 
most heroic, and allegiance without a blemish. — 
How have the successive governments of England 
demeaned themselves to a nation, offering such an 
accumulation of moral and political advantages ! 
See it in the state of Ireland at this instant ; in the 
universal bankruptcy that overwhelms her; in the 
loss of her trade ; in the annihilation of her manu- 
factures ; in the deluge of her debt ; in the divi- 
sions of her people ; in all the loathsome opera- 
tions of an odious, monopolizing, hypocritical 
fanaticism on the one hand, wrestling with the 
untiring but natural reprisals of an irritated popu- 
lation on the other ! It required no common 
ingenuity to reduce such a country to such a situa- 
tion. But it has been done ; man has conquered 
the beneficence of the Deity; his harpy touch 
has changed the viands to corruption ; and that 
land, which you might have possessed in health and 
wealth and vigour, to support you in your hour of 
need, now writhes in the agonies of death, unable 



86 SPEECH 

even to lift the shroud with which famine and 
fatuity try to encumber her convulsion. This is 
what I see a pensioned press denominates tran- 
quillity. Oh, wo to the land threatened with such 
tranquillity ; soUtudinem faciunt, pacem appellant ; 
it is not yet the tranquillity of solitude ; it is not 
yet the tranquillity of death ; but if you would 
know what it is, go forth in the silence of creation, 
when every wind is hushed, and every echo mute, 
and all nature seems to listen in dumb and terri- 
fied and breathless expectation, go forth in such 
an hour, and see the terrible tranquillity by which 
you are surrounded ! How could it be otherwise ; 
when for ages upon ages invention has fatigued 
itself with expedients for irritation ; when, as I 
have read with horror in the progress of my legal 
studies, the homicide of a " mere Irishman" was 
considered justifiable ; and when his ignorance was 
the origin of all his crimes, his education was pro- 
hibited by act of parliament ! — when the people 
were worm-eaten by the odious vermin which a 
church and state adultery had spawned ; when a 
bad heart and brainless head were the fangs by 
which every foreign adventurer and domestic 
traitor fastened upon office ; when the property of 
the native was but an invitation to plunder, and 
his non-acquiescence the signal for confiscation ; 
when religion itself was made the odious pretence 
for every persecution, and the fires of hell were 
alternately lighted with the cross, and quenched 
in the blood of its defenceless followers ! I speak 
of times that are passed: but can their recollec- 
tions, can their consequences be so readily era- 
dicated. Why, however, should I refer to periods 
that are distant ? Behold, at this instant, live 
millions of her people disqualified on account of 



AT LIVERPOOL. 87 

their faith, and that by a country professing free- 
dom ! and that under a government calling itself 
christian ! You (when I say you, of course I mean, 
not the high-minded people of England, but the 
men who misgovern us both) seem to have taken 
out a roving commission in search of grievances 
abroad, whilst you overlook the calamities at your 
own door, and of your own infliction. You traverse 
the ocean to emancipate the African ; you cross the 
line to convert the Hindoo ; you hurl your thunder 
against the savage Algerine ; but your own breth- 
ren at home, who speak the same tongue, acknowl- 
edge the same king, and kneel to the same God, 
cannot get one visit from your itinerant humanity ! — 
Oh, such a system is almost too abominable for a 
name ; it is a monster of impiety, impolicy, ingrat- 
itude, and injustice ! The pagan nations of an- 
tiquity scarcely acted on such barbarous principles. 
Look to ancient Rome, with her sword in one 
hand and her constitution in the other, healing the 
injuries of conquest with the embrace of brother- 
hood, and wisely converting the captive into the 
citizen. Look to her great enemy, the glorious 
Carthagenian, at the foot of the Alps, ranging his 
prisoners round him, and by the politic option of 
captivity or arms, recruiting his legions with the 
very men whom he had literally conquered into 
gratitude ! They laid their foundations deep in 
the human heart, and their success was propor- 
tionate to their policy. You complain of the 
violence of the Irish catholic : can you wonder he 
is violent ? It is the consequence of your own 
infliction — 



1 The flesh will quiver where the pincers tear, 
The blood will follow where the knife is driven." 



88 SPEECH - 

Your friendship has been to him worse than hos- 
tility ; he feels its embrace but by the pressure of 
his fetters ! I am only amazed he is not more 
violent. He fills your exchequer, he fights your 
battles, he feeds your clergy from whom he de- 
rives no benefit, he shares your burdens, he shares 
your perils, he shares every thing except your pri- 
vileges : can you wonder he is violent ? No matter 
what his merit, no matter what his claims, no mat- 
ter what his services ; he sees himself a nominal 
subject, and a real slave ; and his children, the 
heirs, perhaps of his toils, perhaps of his talents, 
certainly of his disqualifications — can you wonder 
he is violent ? He sees every pretended obstacle 
to his emancipation vanished ; catholic Europe 
your ally, the Bourbon on the throne, the emperor 
a captive, the pope a friend, the aspersions on his 
faith disproved by his allegiance to you against, 
alternately, every catholic potentate in Christen- 
dom, and he feels himself branded with heredi- 
tary degradation — can you wonder, then, that he is 
violent ? He petitioned humbly ; his tameness 
was construed into a proof of apathy. He peti- 
tioned boldly ; his remonstrance was considered 
as an impudent audacity. He petitioned in peace ; 
he was told it was not the time. He petitioned in 
war ; he was told it was not the time. A strange 
interval, a prodigy in politics, a pause between 
peace and war, which appeared to be just made 
for him, arose ; I allude to the period between the 
retreat of Louis and the restoration of Buonaparte; 
he petitioned then, and he was told it was not the 
time. Oh, shame ! shame ! shame ! I hope he will 
petition no more to a parliament so equivocating. 
However, I am not sorry they did so equivocate, 
because I think they have suggested one common 



AT LIVERPOOL. 89 

remedy for the grievances of both countries, and 
that remedy is, a Reform op that Parliament. — 
Without that, I plainly see, there is no hope for 
Ireland, there is no salvation for England ; they 
will act towards you as they have done towards 
us ; they will admit your reasoning, they will ad- 
mire your eloquence, and they will prove, their 
sincerity by a strict perseverance in the impolicy 
you have exposed, and the profligacy you have de- 
precated. Look to England at this moment. To 
w r hat a state have they not reduced her ! Over 
this vast island, for whose wealth the winds of 
Heaven seemed to blow, covered as she once was 
with the gorgeous mantle of successful agriculture, 
all studded over with the gems of art and manu- 
facture, there is now scarce an object but industry 
in rags, and patience in despair: the merchant 
without a ledger, the fields without a harvest, the 
shops without a customer, the Exchange deserted, 
and the Gazette crowded, from the most heart- 
rending comments on that nefarious system, in 
support of which, peers and contractors, stock- 
jobbers and sinecurists, in short, the whole trained, 
collared, pampered, and rapacious pack of minis- 
terial beagles, have been, for half a century, in the 
most clamorous and discordant uproar! During 
all this misery how are the pilots of the state em- 
ployed ? Why, in feeding the bloated mammoth 
of sinecure ! in weighing the farthings of some 
underling's salary ! in preparing Ireland for a gar- 
rison, and England for a poor-house ! in the struc- 
ture of Chinese palaces ! the decoration of dra- 
goons, and the erection of public buildings ! ! ! Oh, 
it's easily seen we have a saint in the Exchequer ! 
he has studied scripture to some purpose ! the 
famishing people cry out for breads and the scrip- 
12 



90 SPEECH 

tural minister gives them stones ! Such has beer* 
the result of the blessed Pitt system, which amid 
oceans of blood, and 800 millions expenditure, 
has left you, after all your victories, a triumphant 
dupe, a trophied bankrupt. I have heard before 
of states ruined by the visitations of Providence, 
devastated by famine, wasted by fire, overcome by 
enemies ; but never until now did I see a state 
like England, impoverished by her spoils, and con- 
quered by her successes ! She has fought the fight 
of Europe ; she has purchased all its coinable blood; 
she has subsidized all its dependencies in their own 
cause ; she has conquered by sea, she has conquer- 
ed by land ; she has got peace, and, of course, or 
the Pitt apostles would not have made peace, she 
has got her " indemnity for the past, and security 
for the future," and here she is, after all her vanity 
and all her victories, surrounded by desolation, 
like one of the pyramids of Egypt ; amid the gran- 
deur of the desert, full of magnificence and death, 
at once a trophy and a tomb ! The heart of any 
reflecting man must burn within him, when he 
thinks that the war thus sanguinary in its ope- 
rations, and confessedly ruinous in its expend iture, 
was even still more odious in its principle ! It 
was a war avowedly undertaken for the purpose of 
forcing France out of her undoubted right of 
choosing her own monarch ; a war which uprooted 
the very foundations of the English constitution ; 
which libelled the most glorious era in our national 
annals; which declared tyranny eternal, and an- 
nounced to the people,amid the thunder of artillery, 
that, no matter how aggrieved, their only allowable 
attitude was that of supplication ; which, when it 
told the French reformer of 1793, that his defeat 
was just, told the British reformer of 16B8, his tri- 



AT LIVERPOOL. 91 

amph was treason, and exhibited to history, the ter- 
rific farce of a prince of the house of Brunswick, 
the creature of the revolution, offering an human 

HECATOMB UPON THE GRAVE OF J AMES THE SECOND ! ! 

What else have you done ? You have succeeded 
indeed in dethroning Napoleon, and you have 
dethroned a monarch, who, with all his imputed 
crimes and vices, shed a splendour around royalty, 
too powerful for the feeble vision of legitimacy 
even to bear. He had many faults ; 1 do not seek 
to palliate them. He deserted his principles ; I 
rejoice that he has suffered. But still let us be 
generous even in our enmities. How grand was 
his march ! How magnificent his destiny ! Say 
what we will, sir, he will be the land-mark of our 
times in the eye of posterity. The goal of other 
men's speed was his starting-post ; crowns were 
his play-things, thrones his footstool ; he strode 
from victory to victory ; his path was " a plane 
of continued elevations." Surpassing the boast 
of the two confident Roman, he but stamped upon 
the earth, and not only armed men, but states and 
dynasties, and arts and sciences, all that mind 
could imagine, or industry produce, started up, 
the creation of enchantment. He has fallen — as 
the late Mr. Whitbread said, "you made him, and 
he unmade himself" — his own ambition was his 
glorious conqueror. He attempted, with a sublime 
audacity, to grasp the fires of Heaven, and his 
heathen retribution has been the vulture and the 
rock ! ! I do not ask what you have gained by it, 
because, in place of gaining any thing, you are 
infinitely worse than when you commenced the 
contest! But what have you done for Europe? 
What have you achieved for man ? Have morals 
been ameliorated ? Has liberty been strengthened? 



92 



SPEECH 



Has any one improvement in politics or philosophy 
been produced ? Let us see how. You have re- 
stored to Portugal a prince of whom we know 
nothing, except that when his dominions were 
invaded, his people distracted, his crown in danger, 
and all that could interest the highest energies of 
man at issue, he left his cause to be combated by 
foreign bayonets, and fled with a dastard preci- 
pitation to the shameful security of a distant 
hemisphere ! You have restored to Spain a wretch 
of even worse than proverbial princely ingratitude ; 
who filled his dungeons, and fed his rack with the 
heroic remnant that braved war, and famine, and 
massacre beneath his banners ; who rewarded pa- 
triotism with the prison, fidelity with the torture, 
heroism with the scaffold, and piety with the In- 
quisition ; whose royalty was published by the 
signature of his death-warrants, and whose religion 
evaporated in the embroidering of petticoats for the 
blessed Virgin ! You have forced upon France a 
family to whom misfortune could teach no mercy, 
or experience wisdom ; vindictive in prosperity, 
servile in defeat, timid in the field, vacillating in 
the cabinet ; suspicion amongst themselves, dis- 
content amongst their followers ; their memories 
tenacious but of the punishments they had pro- 
voked, their piety active but in subserviency to 
their priesthood, and their power passive but in 
the subjugation of their people ! Such are the 
dynasties you have conferred on Europe. In the 
very act, that of enthroning three individuals of 
the same family, you have committed in politics a 
capital error; but Providence has countermined 
the ruin you were preparing ; and whilst the im- 
policy prevents the chance, their impotency pre- 
cludes the danger of a coalition. As to the rest 



AT LIVERPOOL. 93 

of Europe, how has it been ameliorated ? What 
solitary benefit have the "deliverers" conferred? 
They have partitioned the states of the feeble to 
feed the rapacity of the powerful ; and after having 
alternately adored and deserted Napoleon, they 
have wreaked their vengeance on the noble, but 
unfortunate fidelity that spurned their example. — - 
Do you want proofs ; look to Saxony, look to Ge- 
noa, look to Norway, but, above all, to Poland ! 
that speaking monument of regal murder and legit- 
imate robbery — 

Oh ! bloodiest picture in the book of time — 
Sarmatia fell — unwept — without a crime ! 

Here was an opportunity to recompense that brave, 
heroic, generous, martyred, and devoted people ; 
here was an opportunity to convince Jacobinism 
that crowns and crimes were not, of course, co- 
existent, and that the highway rapacity of one 
generation might be atoned by the penitential re- 
tribution of another ! Look to Italy; parcelled 
out to temporizing Austria — the land of the muse, 
the historian, and the hero ; the scene of every 
classic recollection; the sacred fane of antiquity, 
where the genius of the world weeps and worships, 
and the spirits of the past start into life at the in- 
spiring pilgrimage of some kindred Roscoe. You 
do yourselves honour by this noble, this natural en- 
thusiasm. Long may you enjoy the pleasure of 
possessing, never can you lose the pride of having 
produced the scholar without pedantry, the patriot 
without reproach, the christian without superstition, 
the man without a blemish ! It is a subject I could 
dwell on with delight for ever. How painful our 
transition to the disgusting path of the deliverers. 



94 SPEECH 

Look to Prussia, after fruitless toil and wreathless 
triumphs, mocked with the promise of a visionary 
constitution. Look to France, chained and plun- 
dered, weeping over the tomb of her hopes and 
her heroes. Look to England, eaten by the cancer 
of an incurable debt, exhausted by poor-rates, 
supporting a civil list of near a million and a half, 
annual amount, guarded by a standing army of 
149,000 men, misrepresented by a house of com- 
mons, 90 of whose members in places and pensions 
derive 200,000/. in yearly emoluments from the 
minister, mocked with a military peace, and girt 
with the fortifications of a war-establishment ! ! 
Shades of heroic millions, these are thy achieve- 
ments ! Monster of Legitimacy, this is thy con- 
summation ! ! ! The past is out of -power ; it is 
high time to provide against the future. Retrench- 
ment and reform are now become not only expe- 
dient for our prosperity, but necessary to our very 
existence. Can any man of sense say that the 
present system should continue ! What ! when 
war and peace have alternately thrown every 
family in the empire into mourning and poverty, 
shall the fattened tax-gatherer extort the starving 
manufacturer's last shilling, to swell the unmerited 
and enormous sinecure of some wealthy pauper ? 
Shall a borough-mongering faction convert what 
is misnamed the National Representation into 
a mere instrument for raising the supplies which 
are to gorge its own venality ? Shall the mock 
dignitaries of Whiggism and Toryism lead their 
hungry retainers to contest the profits of an 
alternate ascendency over the prostrate interest 
of a too generous people ? These are ques- 
tions which I blush to ask, which I shudder to 
think must be either answered by the parliament 



AT LIVERPOOL. 95 

er the people. Let our rulers prudently avert 
the interrogation. We live in times when the 
slightest remonstrance should command atten- 
tion, when the minutest speck that merely dots 
the edge of the political horizon, may be the car 
of the approaching spirit of the storm ? Oh ! 
they are times whose omen no fancied security 
can avert ; times of the most awful and por- 
tentous admonition. Establishments the most 
solid, thrones the most ancient, coalitions the 
most powerful, have crumbled before our eyes ; 
and the creature of a moment robed, and crown- 
ed, and sceptred, raised his fairy creation on 
their ruins ! The warning has been given ; may 
it not have been given in vain ! 

I feel, sir, that the magnitude of the topics I 
have touched, and the imminency of the perils 
which seem tp surround us, have led me far be- 
yond the limits *of a convivial meeting. I see I 
have my apology in your indulgence — but I can- 
not prevail on myself to trespass farther. Accept, 
again, gentlemen, my most grateful acknowledg- 
ments. Never, never can I forget this day : in pri- 
vate life it shall be the companion of my solitude ; 
and if, in the caprices of that fortune which will at 
times degrade the high and dignify the humble, 
I should hereafter be called to any station of 
responsibility, 1 think I may at least fearlessly 
promise the friends who thus crowd around me, 
that no act of mine shall ever raise a blush at the 
recollection of their early encouragement. I hope, 
however, the benefit of this day will not be confin- 
ed to the humble individual you have so honoured : 
I hope it will cheer on the young aspirants after 
virtuous fame in both our countries, by proving to 
them, that however, for the moment, envy, or 



96 SPEECH AT LIVERPOOL. 

ignorance, or corruption, may depreciate them, 
there is a reward in store for the man who thinks 
with integrity and acts with decision. Gentlemen, 
you will add to the obligations you have already 
conferred, by delegating to me the honour of pro- 
posing to you the health of a man, whose virtues 
adorn, and whose talents powerfully advocate our 
cause ; I mean the health of your worthy chairman, 
Mr. Shepherd. 



sKPsmuat 

OE 

MR. PHILLIPS 

IN 

THE CASE OF GUTHRIE v. STERNE, 

DELIVERED IN THE COURT OF COMMON PLEAS, 

DUBLIN. 



My Lord and Gentlemen, 

In this case I am of counsel for the plaintiff who 
has deputed me, with the kind concession of 
my much more efficient colleagues, to detail to 
you the story of his misfortunes. In the course 
of a long friendship which has existed between 
us, originating in mutual pursuits, and cemented 
by our mutual attachments, never, until this in- 
stant, did I feel any thing but pleasure in the 
claims which it created, or the duty which it 
imposed. In selecting me, however, from this 
bright array of learning and of eloquence, I can- 
not help being pained at the kindness of a par- 
tiality which forgets its interest in the exercise of 
its affection, and confides the task of practised wis- 
dom to the uncertain guidance of youth and inex- 
perience. He has thought, perhaps, that truth 
needed no set phrase of speech ; that misfortune 
should not veil the furrows which its tears had 

13 



98 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 

burned ; or hide, under the decorations of an art- 
ful drapery, the heart-rent heavings with which 
its bosom throbbed. He has surely thought thi t f 
by contrasting mine with the powerful talents 
selected by his antagonist, he was giving you a 
proof that the appeal he made was to your reason, 
not to your feelings — to the integrity of your 
hearts, not the exasperation of your passions. Hap- 
pily, however, for him, happily for you, happily 
for the country, happily for the profession, on sub- 
jects such as this, the experience of the oldest 
amongst us is but slender ; deeds such as this are 
not indigenous to an Irish soil, or naturalized be- 
neath an Irish climate. We hear of them, indeed, 
as we do of the earthquakes that convulse, or the 
pestilence that infects, less favoured regions ; but 
the record of the calamity is only read with the 
generous scepticism of innocence, or an involun- 
tary thanksgiving to the Providence that has pre- 
served us. JNo matter how we may have graduated 
in the scale of nations ; no matter with what wreath 
we may have been adorned, or what blessings we 
may have been denied ; no matter what may have 
been our feuds, our follies, or our misfortunes ; it 
has at least been universally conceded, that our 
hearths were the home of the domestic virtues, and 
that love, honour, and conjugal fidelity, were the 
dear and indisputable deities of our household : 
around the fire-side of the Irish hovel hospitality 
circumscribed its sacred circle ; and a provision to 
punish created a suspicion of the possibility of its 
violation. But of all the ties that bound — of all the 
bounties that blessed her — Ireland most obeyed, 
most loved, most reverenced the nuptial contract. 
She saw it the gift of Heaven, the charm of earth, 
the joy of the present, the promise of the future. 



GUTHRIE v. STERNE. 99 

the innocence of enjoyment, the chastity of passion, 
the sacrament of love : the slender curtain that 
shades the sanctuary of her marriage-bed, has in its 
purity the splendour of the mountain-snow, and for 
its protection the texture of the mountain adamant. 
Gentlemen, that national sanctuary has been in- 
vaded ; that venerable divinity has been violated ; 
and its tenderest pledges torn from their shrine, 
hy the polluted rapine of a kindiess, heartless, 
prayerless, remorseless adulterer ! To you — re- 
ligion defiled, morals insulted, law despised, public 
order foully violated, and individual happiness 
wantonly wounded, make their melancholy appeal. 
You will hear the facts with as much patience as 
indignation will allow — I will myself, ask of you 
to adjudge them with as much mercy as justice 
will admit. 

The plaintiff in this case is John Guthrie ; by 
birth, by education, by profession, by better, than 
all, by practice and by principles, a gentleman. — 
Believe me, it is not from the common-place of 
advocacy, or from the blind partiality of friend- 
ship, that I say of him, that whether considering 
the virtues that adorn life, or the blandishments 
that endear it, he has few superiors. Surely, if a 
spirit that disdained dishonour, if a heart that 
knew not guile, if a life above reproach, and a 
character beyond suspicion, could have been a 
security against misfortunes, his lot must have 
been happiness. I speak in the presence of that 
profession to which he was an ornament, and with 
whose members his manhood has been familiar ; 
and I say of him, with a confidence that defies 
refutation, that, whether we consider him in his 
private or his public station, as a man or as a law- 
yer, there never breathed that being less capable 



100 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 

of exciting enmity towards himself, or of offering, 
even by implication, an offence to others. If he 
had a fault, it was, that, above crime, he was above 
suspicion ; and to that noblest error of a noble 
nature he has fallen a victim. Having spent his 
youth in the cultivation of a mind which must 
have one day led him to eminence, he became a 
member of the profession by which I am surround- 
ed. Possessing, as he did, a moderate independence, 
and looking forward to the most flattering pros- 
pects, it was natural for him to select amongst the 
other sex, some friend who should adorn his for- 
tunes, and deceive his toils. He found such a 
friend, or thought he found her, in the person of 
Miss Warren, the only daughter of an eminent 
soliciter. Young, beautiful, and accomplished, she 
was " adorned with all that earth or heaven could 
bestow to make her amiable." Virtue never found 
a fairer temple ; beauty never veiled a purer sanc- 
tuary : the graces of her mind retained the ad- 
miration which her beauty had attracted, and the 
eye, which her charms fired, became subdued and 
chastened in the modesty of their association. She 
was in the dawn of life, with all its fragrance round 
her, and yet so pure, that even the blush, which 
sought to hide her lustre, but disclosed the vestal 
deity that burned beneath it. No wonder an ador- 
ing husband anticipated all the joys this world 
could give him; no wonder the parental eye, 
which beamed upon their union, saw, in the per- 
spective, an old age of happiness, and a posterity 
of honour. Methinks I see them at the sacred 
altar, joinings those hands which Heaven com- 
manded none should separate, repaid for many a 
pang of anxious nurture by the sweet smile of filial 
piety ; and in the holy rapture of the rite, wor- 



GUTHRIE v. STERNE. 101 

shipping the power that blessed their children, 
and gave them hope their names should live here- 
after. It was virtue's vision ! None but fiends 
could envy it. Year after year confirmed the an- 
ticipation ; four lovely children blessed their union. 
Nor was their love the summer-passion of prosper- 
ity ; misfortune proved, afflictions chastened it : 
before the mandate of that mysterious Power which 
will at times despoil the path of innocence, to de- 
corate the chariot of triumphant villany, my client 
had to bow in silent resignation. He owed his 
adversity to the benevolence of his spirit; he 
44 went security for friends ;" those friends de- 
ceived him, and he was obliged to seek in other 
lands, that safe asylum which his own denied him. 
He was glad to accept an offer of professional 
business in Scotland during his temporary embar- 
rassment. With a conjugal devotion, Mrs. Guthrie 
accompanied him ; and in her smile the soil of a 
stranger was a home, the sorrows of adversity 
were dear to him. During their residence in 
Scotland, a period of about a year, you will find 
they lived as they had done in Ireland, and as 
they continued to do until this calamitous occur- 
rence, in a state of uninterrupted happiness. You 
shall hear, most satisfactorily, that their domestic 
life was unsullied and undisturbed. Happy at 
home, happy in a husband's love, happy in her 
parent's fondness, happy in the children she had 
nursed, Mrs. Guthrie carried into every circle — 
and there was no circle in which her society was 
not courted — that cheerfulness which never was 
a companion of guilt, or a stranger to innocence. 
My client saw her the pride of his family, the 
favourite of his friends- — at once the organ and 
ornament of his happiness. His ambition awoke, 






102 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 

his industry redoubled ; and that fortune, which 
though for a season it may frown, never totally 
abandons probity and virtue, had begun to smile 
on him. He was beginning to rise in the ranks 
of his competitors, and rising with such a cha- 
racter, that emulation itself rather rejoiced than 
envied. It was at this crisis, in this, the noon 
of his happiness, and day-spring of his fortune, 
that, to the ruin of both, the defendant became 
acquainted with his family. With the serpent's 
wile, and the serpent's wickedness, he stole into 
the Eden of domestic life, poisoning all that was 
pure, polluting all that was lovely, defying God, 
destroying man ; a demon in the disguise of virtue, 
a herald of hell in the paradise of innocence. — 
His name, gentlemen, is William Peter Baker 
Dunstanville Sterne : one would think he had 
epithets enough, without adding to them the title 
of Adulterer. Of his character I know but little, 
and I am sorry that I know so much. If I am in- 
structed rightly, he is one of those vain and vapid 
coxcombs, whose vices tinge the frivolity of their 
follies with something of a more odious character 
than ridicule — with just head enough to contrive 
crime, but not heart enough to feel for its conse- 
quences ; one of those fashionable insects, that 
folly has painted, and fortune plumed, for the 
annoyance of our atmosphere ; dangerous alike in 
their torpidity and their animation ; infesting where 
they fly, and poisoning where they repose. It was 
through the introduction of Mr. Fallon, the son of 
a most respectable lady, then resident in Temple- 
street, and a near relative of Mr. Guthrie, that the 
defendant and this unfortunate woman first be- 
came acquainted : to such an introduction the 
shadow of a suspicion could not possibly attach. 



GUTHRIE v. STERNE. 103 

Occupied himself in his professional pursuits, my 
client had little leisure for the amusement of 
society : however, to the protection of Mrs. Fallon, 
her son, and daughters, moving in the first circles, 
unstained by any possible imputation, he without 
hesitation intrusted all that was dear to him, 
No suspicion could be awakened as to any man to 
whom such a female as Mrs. Fallon permitted an 
intimacy with her daughters ; while at her house 
then and at the parties which it originated, the 
defendant and Mrs. Guthrie had frequent oppor- 
tunities of meeting. Who could have suspected, 
that, under the very roof of virtue, in the presence 
of a venerable and respected matron, and of that 
innocent family, whom she had reared up in the 
sunshine of her example, the most abandoned pro- 
fligate could have plotted his iniquities ! Who 
would not rather suppose, that, in the rebuke of 
such a presence, guilt would have torn away the 
garland from its brow, and blushed itself into 
virtue. But the depravity of this man was of no 
common dye : the asylum of innocence was se^ 
lected only as the sanctuary of his crimes ; and 
the pure and the spotless chosen as his associates, 
because they would be more unsuspected subsi- 
diaries to his wickedness. Nor were his manner 
and his language less suited than his society to the 
concealment of his objects. If you believed him- 
self, the sight of suffering affected his nerves ; the 
bare mention of immorality smote upon his con- 
science ; an intercourse with the continental courts 
had refined his mind into a painful sensibility to 
the barbarisms of Ireland ! and yet an internal 
tenderness towards his native land so irresistibly 
impelled him to improve it by his residence, that 
he was a hapless victim to the excess of his feel- 



104 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 

ings ! — the exquisiteness of his polish ! — and the 
excellence of his patriotism ! His English estates, 
he said, amounted to about 10,000/. a-year; and 
he retained in Ireland only a trifling 3000/. more, 
as a kind of trust fbr the necessities of its inhabit- 
ants h — In short, according to his own description, 
he was in religion a saint, and in morals a stoic ! — 
a sort of wandering philanthropist ! making, like 
the Sterne who, he confessed, had the honour of his 
name and his connexion, a sentimental journey in 
search of objects over whom his heart might weep, 
and his sensibility expand itself! 

How happy it is, that, of the philosophic pro- 
fligate only retaining the vices and the name, his 
rashness has led to the arrest of crimes, which he 
had all his turpitude to commit, without any of his 
talents to embellish. 

It was by arts such as I have alluded to — by pre- 
tending the most strict morality, the most sensitive 
honour, the most high and undeviating principles of 
virtue, — that the defendant banished every suspi- 
cion of his designs. As far as appearances went, he 
was exactly what he described himself. His pre- 
tensions to morals he supported by the most reserv- 
ed and respectful behaviour ; his hand was lavish 
in the distribution of his charities; and a splendid 
equipage, a numerous retinue, a system of the most 
profuse and prodigal expenditure, left no doubt as 
to the reality of his fortune. Thus circumstanced, 
he found an easy admittance to the house of Mrs. 
Fallon, and there he had many opportunities of 
seeing Mrs. Guthrie ; for, between his family and 
that of so respectable a relative as Mrs. Fallon, my 
client had much anxiety to increase the connex- 
ion. They visited together some of the public 
amusements : they partook of some of the fetes in 



GUTHRIE v. STERNE. 105 

the neighbourhood of the metropolis; but upon 
every occasion, Mrs. Guthrie was accompanied by 
her own mother, and by the respectable females of 
Mrs. Fallon's family. I say, upon every occasion : 
and I challenge them to produce one single instance 
of those innocent excursions, upon whicii the 
slanders of an interested calumny have been let 
loose, in which this unfortunate lady was not ma- 
tronized by her female relatives, and those some 
of the most spotless characters in society. Be- 
tween Mr. Guthrie and the defendant, the ac- 
quaintance was but slight. Upon one occasion 
alone they dined together ; it was at the house of 
the plaintiff's father-in-law ; and, that you may 
have some illustration of the defendant's cha- 
racter, I shall briefly instance his conduct at this 
dinner. On being introduced to Mr. Warren, he 
apologized for any deficiency of etiquette in his 
visits, declaring that he had been seriously occu- 
pied in arranging the affairs of his lamented 
father, who, though tenant for life, had contract- 
ed debts to an enormous amount. He had already 
paid upwards of 10,000/. which honour and not 
law compelled him to discharge ; as, sweet soul ! 
he could not bear that any one should suffer un- 
justly by his family ! His subsequent conduct was 
quite consistent with this hypocritical preamble : 
at dinner, he sat at a distance from Mrs. Guthrie ; 
expatiated to her husband upon matters of moral- 
ity ; entering into a high-flown panegyric on the 
virtues of domestic life, and the comforts of con- 
nubial happiness. In short, had there been any 
idea of jealousy, his manner would have banished 
it ; and the mind must have been worse than 
sceptical, which would refuse its credence to his 
surface morality. Gracious God ! when the heart 
14 



106 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 

once admits guilt as its associate, how every na. 
tural emotion flies before it ! Surely, surely, here 
was a scene to reclaim, if it were possible, this re- 
morseless defendant, — admitted to her father's 
table, under the shield of hospitality, he saw a 
young and lovely female, surrounded by her pa- 
rents, her husband, and her children; the prop of 
those parents' age ; the idol of that husband's 
love ; the anchor of those children's helplessness ; 
the sacred orb of their domestic circle ; giving 
their smile its light, and their bliss its being ; 
robbed of whose beams the little lucid world of 
their home must become chill, uncheered, and 
colourless for ever. He saw them happy, he saw 
them united ; blessed with peace, and purity, and 
profusion ; throbbing with sympathy and throned 
in love ; depicting the innocence of infancy, and 
the joys of manhood, before the venerable eye of 
age, as if to soften the farewell of one world by 
the pure and pictured anticipation of a better. 
Yet, even there, hid in the very sun-beam of that 
happiness, the demon of its destined desolation 
lurked. Just Heaven ! of what materials was that 
heart composed, which could meditate cooly on 
the murder of such enjoyments ; which innocence 
could not soften, nor peace propitiate, nor hos- 
pitality appease ; but which, in the very beam and 
bosom of its benefaction, warmed and excited it- 
self into a more vigorous venom ? Was there no 
sympathy in the scene ? Was there no remorse 
at the crime ? Was there no horror at its con- 
sequences ? 

" Were honour, virtue, conscience, all exiPd ! 
Was there no pity, no relenting ruth, 
To show the parents fondling o'er their child, 
Then paint the ruin'd pair and their distraction wild I" 

Burns. 



GUTHRIE v. STERNE. 107 

No ! no ! He was at that instant planning their 
destruction ; and, even within four short days, he 
deliberately reduced those parents to childishness, 
that husband to widowhood, those smiling infants 
to anticipated orphanage, and that peaceful, hos- 
pitable, confiding family, to helpless, hopeless, ir- 
remediable ruin ! 

Upon the first day of the ensuing July,. Mr. 
Guthrie was to dine with the Connaught bar, at 
the hotel of Portobello. It js a custom, I am told, 
with the gentlemen of that association to dine 
together previous to the circuit ; of course my 
client could not have decorously absented himself. 
Mrs. Guthrie appeared a little feverish, and he re- 
quested that, on his retiring, she would compose 
herself to rest; she promised him she would; and 
when he departed, somewhat abruptly, to put some 
letters in the post-office, she exclaimed, " What ! 
John, are you going to leave me thus ?" He re- 
turned, and she kissed him. They seldom parted, 
even for any time, without that token of affection. 
I am thus minute, gentlemen, that you may see, 
up to the last moment, what little cause the hus- 
band had for suspicion, and how impossible it was 
for him to foresee a perfidy which nothing short of 
infatuation could have produced. He proceeded 
to his companions with no other regret than that 
necessity, for a moment, forced him from a home, 
which the smile of affection had never ceased to 
endear to him. After a day, however, passed, as 
such a day might have been supposed to pass, in 
the flow of soul, and the philosophy of pleasure, 
he returned home to share his happiness with her, 
without whom no happiness ever had been perfect. 
Alas ! he was never to behold her more ! Imagine, 
if you can, the phrenzy of his astonishment, in 



108 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 

being informed by Mrs. Porter, the daughter of 
the former landlady, that about two hours before, 
she had attended Mrs. Guthrie to a confectioner's 
shop ; that a carriage had drawn up at the corner 
of the street, into which a gentleman, whom she 
recognised to be a Mr. Sterne, had handed her, 
and they instantly departed. I must tell you, 
there is every reason to believe, that this woman 
was the confidant of the conspiracy. What a pity 
that the object of that guilty confidence had not 
something of humanity ; that, as a female, she did 
not feel for the character of her sex ; that, as a 
mother, she did not mourn over the sorrows of a 
helpless family ! What pangs might she not have 
spared ? My client could hear no more : even at 
the dead of night he rushed into the street, as if 
in its own dark hour he could discover guilt's re- 
cesses. In vain did he awake the peaceful family 
of the horror-struck Mrs. Fallon ; in vain with the 
parents of the miserable fugitive, did he mingle 
the tears of an impotent distraction ; in vain, a 
miserable maniac, did he traverse the silent streets 
of the metropolis, affrighting virtue from its slum- 
ber, with the spectre of its own ruin. I will not 
harrow you with its heart-rending recital. But 
imagine you see him, when the day had dawned, 
returning wretched to his deserted dwelling ; see- 
ing in every chamber a memorial of his loss, and 
hearing every tongueless object eloquent of his 
wo. Imagine you see him, in the reverie of his 
grief, trying to persuade himself it was all a vision, 
and awakened only to the horrid truth by his 
helpless children asking him for their mother ! — 
Gentlemen, this is not a picture of the fancy; it 
literally occurred : there is something less of 
romance in the reflection, which his children 



GUTHRIE v. STERNE. 109 

awakened in the mind of their afflicted father ; 
he ordered that they should be immediately ha- 
bited in mourning. How rational sometimes are 
the ravings of insanity ! For all the purposes of 
maternal life, poor innocents ! they have no mo- 
ther ! her tongue no more can teach, her hand 
no more can tend them ; for them there is not 
« speculation in her eyes ;" to them her life is 
something worse than death ; as if the awful 
grave had yawned her forth, she moves before 
them, shrouded all in sin, the guilty burden of 
its peaceless sepulchre. Better, far better, their 
little feet had followed in her funeral, than the 
hour which taught her value, should reveal her 
vice, — mourning her loss, they might have blessed 
her memory ; and shame need not have rolled its 
fires into the fountain of her sorrow. 

As soon as his reason became sufficiently col- 
lected, Mr. Guthrie pursued the fugitives : he 
traced them successively to Kildare, to Carlow, 
Waterford, Milford haven, on through Wales, and 
finally to Ilfracombe, in Devonshire, where the 
clue was lost. I am glad that, in this route and 
restlessness of their guilt, as the crime they perpe- 
trated was foreign to our soil, they did not make 
that soil the scene of its habitation. I will not 
follow them through this joyless journey, nor 
brand by my record the unconscious scene of its 
pollution. But philosophy never taught, the pulpit 
never enforced, a more imperative morality than 
the itinerary of that accursed tour promulgates. 
Oh ! if there be a maid or matron in this island, 
balancing between the alternative of virtue and of 
crime, trembling between the hell of the seducer 
and the adulterer, and the heaven of the parental 
and the nuptial home, let her pause upon this one 



110 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 

out of the many horrors I could depict, — and be 
converted. I will give yon the relation in the very 
words of my brief; 1 cannot improve upon the sim- 
plicity of the recital : 

" On the 7th of July they arrived at Milford ; 
the captain of the packet dined with them, and 
was astonished at the magnificence of her dress." 
(Poor wretch ! she was decked and adorned for 
the sacrifice !) " The next day they dined alone. 
Towards evening, the housemaid, passing near 
their chamber, heard Mr. Sterne scolding, and 
apparently beating her ! In a short time after, 
Mrs. Guthrie rushed out of her chamber into the 
drawing-room, and throwing herself in agony upon 
the sofa, she exclaimed, " Oh ! cnhat an unhappy 
wretch I am ! — / left my home, where I was happy, 
too happy, seduced by a man who has deceived me. — 
My poor husband ! my dear children ! Oh ! if they 
would even let my little Willi aim live with me ! — it 
would be some consolation to my broken heart !" 

" Alas ! nor children more can she behold, 
Nor friends, nor sacred home." 

Well might she lament over her fallen fortunes ! 
well might she mourn over the memory of days 
when the sun of heaven seemed to rise but for her 
happiness ! well might she recall the home she had 
endeared, the children she had nursed, the hapless 
husband, of whose life she was the pulse ! But 
one short week before, this earth could not reveal 
a lovelier vision : — Virtue blessed, affection fol- 
lowed, beauty beamed on her; the light of every 
eye, the charm of every heart, she moved along in 
cloudless chastity, cheered by the song of love, 
and circled by the splendours she created ! Be- 



GUTHRIE v. STERNE . Ill 

hold her now, the loathsome refuse of an adulter- 
ous bed ; festering in the very infection of her crime; 
the scoff and scorn of their unmanly, merciless, in- 
human author ? But thus it ever is with the 
votaries of guilt; the birth of their crime is the 
death of their enjoyment; and the wretch who 
flings his offering on the altar, falls an immediate 
victim to the flame of his devotion. I am glad it 
is so; it is a wise, retributive dispensation; it 
bears the stamp of a preventive Providence. I 
rejoice it is so, in the present instance, first, because 
this premature infliction must ensure repentance in 
the wretched sufferer ; and next, because, as this 
adulterous fiend has rather acted on the suggestions 
of his nature than his shape, by rebelling against 
the finest impulse of man, he has made himself an 
outlaw from the sympathies of humanity. — Why 
should he expect that charity from you, \\ Inch he 
would not spare even to the misfortunes he had 
inflicted ? For the honour of the form in which 
he is disguised, I am willing to hope he was so 
blinded by his vice, that he did not see the full 
extent of those misfortunes. If he had feelings 
capable of being touched, it is not to the faded 
victim of her own weakness, and of his wickedness, 
that I would direct them. There is something in 
her crime which affrights charity from its commiser- 
ation. But, gentlemen, there is one, over whom 
pity may mourn, — for he is wretched ; and mourn 
without a blush, — for he is guiltless. How shall 
I depict to you the deserted husband ? To every 
other object in this catalogue of calamity there is 
some stain attached which checks compassion. 
But here — Oh! if ever there was a man amiable, 
it was that man. Oh ! if ever there was a husband 
fond, it was that husband. His hope his joy, his 



112 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 

ambition was domestic; his toils were forgotten 
in the affections of his home ; and amid every ad- 
verse variety of fortune, hope pointed to his 
children, — and he was comforted. By this vile 
act that hope is blasted, that house is a desert, 
those children are parentless ! In vain do they 
look to their surviving parent : his heart is bro- 
ken, his mind is in ruins, his very form is fa- 
ding from the earth. He had one consolation, 
an aged mother, on whose life the remnant of his 
fortunes hung, and on whose protection of his 
children his remaining prospects rested ; even that 
is over ; — she could not survive his shame, she 
never raised her head, she became hearsed in his 
misfortune ; — he has followed her funeral. If 
this be not the climax of human misery, tell me 
in what does human misery consist ? Wife, parent, 
fortune, prospects, happiness, — all gone at once, 
— and gone for ever ! For my part, when I con- 
template this, I do not wonder at the impression 
it has produced on him ; I do not wonder at the 
faded form, the dejected air, the emaciated coun- 
tenance, and all the ruinous and mouldering 
trophies, by which misery. has marked its triumph 
over youth, and health, and happiness ? I know, 
that in the hordes of what is called fashionable 
life, there is a sect of philosophers, wonderfully 
patient of their fellow-creatures' sufferings ; men 
too insensible to feel for any one, or too selfish to 
feel for others. I trust there is not one amongst 
you who can even hear of such calamities without 
affliction ; or, if there be, I pray that he may never 
know their import by experience ; that having, in 
the wilderness of this world, but one dear and 
darling object, without whose participation bliss 
would be joyless, and in whose sympathies sorrow 



GUTHRIE v. STERNE. 113 

has found a charm ; whose smile has cheered his 
toil, whose love has pillowed his misfortunes, whose 
angel-spirit, guiding him through danger, and dark- 
ness, and despair, amid the world's frown and the 
friend's perfidy, was more than friend, and world, 
and all to him ! God forbid, that by a villain's 
wile, or a villain's wickedness, he should be taught 
how to appreciate the wo of others in the dismal 
solitude of his own. Oh, no ! 1 feel that I address 
myself to human beings, who, knowing the value 
of what the world is worth, are capable of appre- 
ciating all that makes it dear to us. 

Observe, however, — lest this crime should want 
aggravation — observe, I beseech you, the period 
of its accomplishment. My client was not so 
young as that the elasticity of his spirit could re- 
bound and bear him above the pressure of the 
misfortune, nor was he withered by age into a 
comparative insensibility ; but just at that tem- 
perate interval of manhood, when passion had 
ceased to play, and reason begins to operate ; when 
love, gratified, left him nothing to desire ; and 
fidelity, long tried, left him nothing to apprehend : 
he was just, too, at that period of his professional 
career, when, his patient industry having con- 
quered the ascent, he was able to look around him 
from the height on which he rested. For this, 
welcome had been the day of tumult, and the pale 
midnight lamp succeeding ; welcome had been the 
drudgery of form ; welcome the analysis of crime ; 
welcome the sneer of envy, and the scorn of dul- 
ness, and all the spurns which " patient merit of 
the unworthy takes." For this he had encountered, 
perhaps, the generous rivalry of genius, perhaps 
the biting blasts of poverty, perhaps the efforts of 
that deadly slander, which, coiling round the cra- 

15 



114 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 

die of his young ambition, might have sought te 
crush him in its envenomed foldings. 

" Ah ! who can tell how hard it is to climb 
The steep where Fame's proud temple shines afar J* 
Ah ! who can tell how many a soul sublime 
Hath felt the influence of malignant star, 
And waged with fortune an eternal war ?" 

Can such an injury as this admit of justification? 
I think the learned counsel will concede it cannot 
But it may be palliated. Let us see how. Per- 
haps the defendant was young and thoughtless ; 
perhaps unmerited prosperity raised him above the 
pressure of misfortune; and the the wild pulses of 
impetuous passion impelled him to a purpose at 
which his experience would have shuddered. Quite 
the contrary. The noon of manhood has almost 
passed over him ; and a youth, spent in the re- 
cesses of a debtor's prison, made him familiar with 
exery form of human misery; he saw what mis- 
fortune was ; — it did not teach him pity : he saw 
the effects of guilt ; — he spurned the admonition. 
Perhaps in the solitude of a single life, he had 
never known the social blessedness of marriage : 
— he has a wife and children ; or, if she be not 
his wife, she is the victim of his crime, and adds 
another to the calendar of his seduction. Certain 
it is, he has little children, who think themselves 
legitimate ; will his advocates defend him, by 
proclaiming their bastardy ? Certain it is, there 
is a wretched female, his own cousin too, who 
thinks herself his wife ; will they protect him, by 
proclaiming he has only deceived her into being 
his prostitute ? Perhaps his crime, as in the cele- 
brated case of Howard, immortalized by Lord 
Erskine y may have found its origin in parental 



GUTHRIE v. STERNE. 115 

cruelty; it might perhaps have been, that in their 
spring of life, when fancy waved her iairy wand 
around them, till all above was sun-shine, and all 
beneath was flowers ; when to their clear and 
charmed vision this ample world was but a weed- 
less garden, where every tint spoke Nature's love- 
liness, and every sound breathed Heaven's melody, 
and every breeze was but embodied fragrance ; it 
might have been that, in this cloudless holiday, 
Love wove his roseate bondage round them, till 
their young hearts so grew together, a separate 
existence ceased, and life itself became a sweet 
identity; it might have been that, envious of this 
paradise, some worse than demon tore them from 
each other, to pine for years in absence, and at 
length to perish in a palliated impiety. Oh! 
gentlemen, in such a case, Justice herself, with 
her uplifted sword, would call on Mercy to pre- 
serve the victim. There was no such palliation; 
— the period of their acquaintance was little more 
than sufficient for the maturity of their crime; and 
they dare not libel Love, by shielding under its 
soft and sacred name the loathsome revels of an 
adulterous depravity. It might have been, the 
husband's cruelty left a too easy inroad for se- 
duction. Will they dare assert it ? Ah ! too well 
they knew he would not let " the winds of Heaven 
visit her face too roughly." Monstrous as it is, 
I have heard, indeed, that they mean to rest upon 
an opposite palliation ; I have heard it rumoured, 
that they mean to rest the wife's infidelity upon 
the husband's fondness. I know that guilt, in its 
conception mean, and in its commission tremulous, 
'is, in its exposure, desperate and audacious. I 
know that, in the fugitive panic of its retreat, it 
will stop to fling its Parthian poison upon the 



116 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 

justice that pursues it. But I do hope, bad and 
abandoned, and hopeless as their cause is, — I do 
hope, for the name of human nature, that 1 have 
been deceived in the rumours of this unnatural 
defence. Merciful God ! is it in the presence of 
this venerable court, is it in the hearing of this 
virtuous jury, is it in the zenith of an enlightened 
age, that 1 am to be told, because female tender- 
ness was not watched with worse than Spanish 
vigilance, and harrassed with worse than eastern 
severity; because the marriage-contract is not 
converted into the curse of incarceration ; be- 
cause woman is allowed the dignity of a human 
soul, and man does not degrade himself into a 
human monster ; because the vow of endearment 
is not made the vehicle of deception, and the 
altar's pledge is not become the passport of a 
barbarous perjury; and that too in a land of 
courage and chivalry, where the female form has 
been held as a patent direct from the Divinity, 
bearing in its chaste and charmed helplessness 
the assurance of its strength, and the amulet of its 
protection ; am I to be told, that the demon 
adulterer is therefore not only to perpetrate his 
crimes, but to vindicate himself, through the very 
virtues he has violated ? I cannot believe it ; I 
dismiss the supposition : it is most " monstrous," 
foul, and unnatural." Suppose that the plaintiff 
pursued a different principle ; suppose that his con- 
duct had been the reverse of what it was ; suppose, 
that in place of being kind, he had been cruel to 
this deluded female ; that he had been her tyrant, 
not her protector ; her gaoler, not her husband : 
what then might have been the defence of the adul- 
terer ? Might he not then say, and say with spe- 
ciousness, " True, I seduced her into crime, but it 



GUTHRIE v. STERNE. 117 

was to save her from cruelty; true, she is my adul- 
teress, because he was her despot" Happily, gen- 
tlemen, he can say no such thing. I have heard it 
said, too, during the ten months of calumny, for 
which, by every species of legal delay, they have 
procrastinated this trial, that, next to the impeach- 
ment of the husband's tenderness, they mean to 
rely on what they libel as the levity of their un- 
happy victim ! I know not by what right any 
man, but above all, a married man, presumes to 
scrutinize into the conduct of a married female. 
I know not, gentlemen, how you would feel, un- 
der the consciousness that every coxcomb was 
at liberty to estimate the warmth, or the coolness, 
of your wives, by the barometer of his vanity, that 
he might ascertain precisely the prudence of his 
invasion on their virtue. But I do know, that 
such a defence, coming from such a quarter, would 
not at all surprise me. Poor — unfortunate — fal- 
len female ! How can she expect mercy from 
her destroyer ? How can she expect that he will 
revere the characters he was careless of preserving? 
How can she suppose that, after having made her 
peace the pander to his appetite, he will not make 
her reputation the victim of his avarice ? Such a 
defence is quite to be expected : knowing him, it 
will not surprise me ; if I know you, it will not 
avail him. 

Having now shown you, that a crime almost 
unprecedented in this country, is clothed in every 
aggravation, and robbed of every palliative, it is 
natural you should inquire, what was the motive 
for its commission ? What do you think it was ? 
Providentially — miraculously, I should have said, 
for you never could have divined — the defendant 
has himself disclosed it What do you think it 



118 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 

was, gentlemen ? Ambition ! But a few days before 
his criminality, in answer to a friend, who rebuked 
him for the almost princely expenditure of his 
habits, "Oh," says he, "never mind; Sterne 
must do something by which Sterne may be 
known." I had heard, indeed, that ambition was 
a vice, — but then a vice, so equivocal, it verged 
on virtue ; that it was the aspiration of a spirit, 
sometimes perhaps appalling, always magnificent ; 
that though its grasp might be fate, and its flight 
might be famine, still it reposed on earth's pinnacle, 
and played in heaven's lightnings ; that though it 
might fall in ruins, it arose in fire, and was withal 
so splendid, that even the horrors of that fall be- 
came immerged and mitigated in the beauties of 
that aberration ! But here is an ambition ! — base, 
and barbarous and illegitimate ; with all the gross- 
ness of the vice, with none of the grandeur of the 
virtue ; a mean, muffled, dastard incendiary, who, 
in the silence of sleep, and in the shades of mid- 
night, steals his Ephesian torch into the fane, 
which it was virtue to adore, and worse than sa- 
crilege to have violated ! 

Gentlemen, my part is done ; yours is about to 
commence. You have heard this crime — its 
origin, its progress, its aggravations, its novelty 
among us. Go, and tell your children and your 
country, whether or not it is to be made a pre- 
cedent. Oh, how awful is your responsibility ! — 
I do not doubt that you will discharge yourselves 
of it as becomes your characters. I am sure, in- 
deed, that you will mourn with me over the almost 
solitary defect in our otherwise matchless system 
of jurisprudence, which leaves the perpetraters of 
such an injury as this, subject to no amercement 
but that of money. I think you will lament the 



GUTHRIE v. STERNE. 1 1 9 

failure of the great Cicero of our age, to bring such 
an offence within the cognisance of a criminal 
jurisdiction : it was a subject suited to his legis- 
lative mind, worthy of his feeling heart, worthy of 
his immortal eloquence. I cannot, my Lord, even 
remotely allude to Lord Erskine, without gratifying 
myself by saying of him, that by the rare union of 
all that was learned in law with all that was lucid 
in eloquence ; by the singular combination of all 
that was pure in morals with all that was profound 
in wisdom ; he has stamped upon every action of 
his life the blended authority of a great mind, and 
an unquestionable conviction. I think, gentlemen, 
you will regret the failure of such a man in such 
an object. The merciless murderer may have 
manliness to plead; the highway robber may have 
want to palliate; yet they both are objects of 
criminal infliction : but the murderer of connubial 
bliss, who commits his crime in secrecy; — the 
robber of domestic joys, whose very wealth, as in 
this case, may be his instrument ; — he is suffered 
to calculate on the infernal fame which a superflu- 
ous and unfelt expenditure may purchase. The 
law, however, is so : and we must only adopt the 
remedy it affords us. In your adjudication of that 
remedy, I do not ask too much, when I ask the 
full extent of your capability : how poor, even so, 
is the wretched remuneration for an injury which 
nothing can repair, — for a loss which nothing can 
alleviate ? Do you think that a mine could re- 
compense my client for the forfeiture of her who 
was dearer than life to him ? 

" Oh, had she been but true, 
Though Heaven had made him such another worId ? 
Of one entire and perfect chrysolite, 
He'd Hot exchange her for it f" 



120 SPEECH. 

I put it to any of you, what would you take to 
stand in his situation ? What would you take to 
have your prospects blasted, your profession de- 
spoiled, your peace ruined, your bed profaned, your 
parents heart-broken, your children parentless ? 
Believe me, gentlemen, if it were not for those 
children, he would not come here to-day to seek 
such remuneration ; if it were not that, by your 
verdict, you may prevent those little innocent de- 
frauded wretches from wandering beggars, as well 
as orphans, on the face of this earth. Oh, I know 
I need not ask this verdict from your mercy ; I need 
not extort it from your compassion; I will receive 
it from your justice. I do conjure you, not as fa- 
thers, but as husbands; — not as husbands, but as 
citizens ; — not as citizens, but as men ; — not as men, 
but as christians ; — by all your obligations, public, 
private, moral, and religious; by the hearth pro- 
faned ; by the home desolated ; by the canons of 
the living God foully spurned; — save, oh! save 
your fire-sides from the contagion, your country 
from the crime, and perhaps thousands, yet un- 
born, from the shame, and sin, and sorrow of this 
example ! 



MR. PHILLIPS 



IN 



THE CASE OF CTMULLAN v. M'KORKILL, 

DELIVERED IN THE COUNTY COURT-HOUSE, 

GALWAY. 



My Lords and Gentlemen, 

I am instructed as of counsel for the plaintiff 
to state to you the circumstances in which this 
action has originated. It is a source to me, I will 
confess it, of much personal embarrassment. Fee- 
bly, indeed, can I attempt to convey to you, the 
feelings with which a perusal of this brief has 
affected me ; painful to you must be my inefficient 
transcript — painful to all who have the common 
feelings of country or of kind, must be this cala- 
mitous compendium of all that degrades our indi- 
vidual nature, and of all that has, for many an age 
of sorrow, perpetuated a curse upon our national 
character. It is, perhaps, the misery of this pro- 
fession, that every hour our vision may be blasted 
by some withering crime, and our hearts wrung 
with some agonizing recital ; there is no frightful 
form of vice, or no disgusting phantom of infirmity, 
which guilt does not array in spectral train before 
fcs. Horrible is the assemblage ! humiliating the 
16 



122 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 

application ! but, thank God, even amid those very 
scenes of disgrace and of debasement, occasions oft 
arise for the redemption of our dignity ; occasions, 
on which the virtues breathed into us, by heavenly 
inspiration, walk abroad in the divinity of their 
exertion ; before whose beam the wintry robe falls 
from the form of virtue, and all the midnight 
images of horror vanish into nothing. Joyfully 
and piously do I recognize such an occasion ; 
gladly do I invoke you to the generous partici- 
pation ; yes, gentlemen, though you must prepare 
to hear much that degrades our nature, much that 
distracts our country — though all that oppression 
could devise against the poor — though all that 
persecution could inflict upon the feeble — though 
all that vice could wield against the pious — 
though all that the venom of a venal turpitude 
could pour upon the patriot, must with their alter- 
nate apparition afflict, affright, and humiliate you, 
still do I hope, that over this charnel-house of 
crime — over this very sepulchre, where corruption 
sits enthroned upon the merit it has murdered, that 
voice is at length about to be heard, at which the 
martyred victim will arise to vindicate the ways of 
Providence, and prove that even in its worst ad- 
versity there is a might and immortality in virtue. 
The plaintiff, gentlemen, you have heard, is 
the Rev. Cornelius O'Mullan ; he is a clergyman 
of the church of Rome, and became invested with 
that venerable appellation, so far back as Septem- 
ber, 1804. It is a title which you know, in this 
country, no rank ennobles, no treasure enriches, no 
establishment supports ; its possessor stands undis- 
guised by any rag of this world's decoration, resting 
all temporal, all eternal hope upon his toil, his ta- 
lents, his attainments, and his piety — doubtless, after 



O'MULLAN v. M'KORKILL. 123 

all, the highest honours, as well as the most imper- 
ishable treasures of the man of God. Year after 
year passed over my client, and each anniversary 
only gave him an additional title to these qualifica- 
tions. His precept was but the handmaid to his 
practice ; the sceptic heard him, and was convin- 
ced ; the ignorant attended him, and were taught; 
he smoothed the death-bed of too heedless wealth; 
he rocked the cradle of the infant charity : oh, no 
wonder he walked in the sunshine of the public 
eye, no wonder he toiled through the pressure of 
the public benediction. This is not an idle decla- 
mation : such was the result his ministry produced, 
that within five years from the date of its com- 
mencement, nearly 2000/. of voluntary subscription 
enlarged the temple where such precepts were 
taught, and such piety exemplified. Such was 
the situation of Mr. O'Mullan, when a dissolution 
of parliament took place, and an unexpected con- 
test for the representation of Derry, threw that 
county into unusual commotion. One of the can- 
didates was of the Ponsonby family — a family 
devoted to the interests, and dear to the heart of 
Ireland ; he naturally thought that his parlia- 
mentary conduct entitled him to the vote of every 
catholic in the land ; and so it did, not only of 
every catholic, but of every christian who pre- 
ferred the diffusion of the gospel to the ascend- 
ancy of a sect and loved the principles of the con- 
stitution better than the pretensions of a party. 
Perhaps you will think with me that there is a 
sort of posthumous interest thrown about that 
event when I tell you that the candidate on that 
occasion was the lamented hero over whose tomb 
the tears not only of Ireland, but of Europe, have 
been so lately shed; he who, mid the blossom of 



< [ 



124 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 

the world's chivalry, died conquering a deathless 
name upon the field of Waterloo. He applied to 
Mr. O'Mullan for his interest, and that interest 
was cheerfully given, the concurrence of his bishop 
having been previously obtained. Mr. Ponsonby 
succeeded ; and a dinner, to which all parties were 
invited, and from which all party spirit was ex- 
pected to absent itself, was given to commemorate 
one common triumph — the purity and the privi- 
leges of election. In other countries, such an ex- 
pectation might be natural ; the exercise of a 
noble constitutional privilege, the triumph of a 
great popular cause, might not unaptly expand 
itself in the intercourse of the board and unite all 
hearts in the natural bond of festive commemo- 
ration. But, alas, gentlemen, in this unhappy land 
such has been the result whether of our faults, 
our follies or our misfortunes, that a detestable 
disunion converts the very balm of the bowl into 
poison, commissioning its vile and harpy offspring, 
to turn even our festivity into famine. My client 
was at this dinner; it was not to be endured that 
a catholic should pollute with his presence the ci- 
vic festivities of the loyal Londonderry ! such an 
intrusion, even the acknowledged sanctity of his 
character could not excuse ; it became necessary 
to insult him. There is a toast, which, perhaps, 
few in this united country are in the habit 
of hearing, but it is the invariable watchword of 
the Orange orgies ; it is briefly entitled " The 
glorious, pious and immortal memory of the great 
and good King William." I have no doubt the 
simplicity of your understandings is puzzled how 
to discover any offence in the commemoration of 
the revolution hero. The loyalists of Derry are 
more wise in their generation. There, when some 



O'MULLAN v. M'KORKILL. 125 

Bacchanalian bigots wish to avert the intrusive 
visitations of their own memory, they commence 
by violating the memory of King William.* Those 
who happen to have shoes or silver in their frater- 
nity — no very usual occurrence — thank his ma- 
jesty that the shoes are not wooden and that the 
silver is not brass, a commodity, by the bye, of 
which any legacy would have been quite super- 
fluous. The pope comes in for a pious benedic- 
tion ; and the toast concludes with a patriotic 
wish, for all his persuasion, by the consum- 
mation of which, there can be no doubt, the 
hempen manufactures of this country would ex- 
perience a very considerable consumption. Such, 
gentlemen, is the enlightened, and liberal, and 
social sentiment of which the first sentence, all 
that is usually given, forms the suggestion. I 
must not omit that it is generally taken standing, 
always providing it be in the power of the com- 
pany. This toast was pointedly given to insult 
Mr. O'Mullan. Naturally averse to any alter- 
cation, his most obvious course was to quit the 
company, and this he did immediately. He was, 
however, as immediately recalled by an intimation, 
that the catholic question, and might its claims 
be considered justly and liberally, had been toasted 
as a peace offering by Sir George Hill, the City 
Recorder. My client had no gall in his disposi- 

* This loyal toast, banded down by Orange tradition, is lite- 
rally as follows, — we give it for the edification of the sister 
island. 

" The glorious, pious, and immortal memory of the great and 
good King William, who saved us from pope and popery, 
James and slavery, brass money and wooden shoes ; here is bad 
luck to the pope, and a hempen rope to all papists " 

It is drank kneeling, if they cannot stand, nine times nine, amid 
various mysteries which none but the elect can comprehend. 



126 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 

tion ; he at once clasped to his heart the friendly 
overture, and in such phrase as his simplicity sup- 
plied, poured forth the gratitude of that heart to 
the liberal Recorder. Poor O'Mullan had the 
wisdom to imagine that the politician's compli- 
ment was the man's comviction, and that a table 
toast was the certain prelude to a parliamentary 
suffrage. Despising all experience he applied 
the adage, Calum non animum mutant qui tranz 
mare currunt, to the Irish patriot. I need not paint 
to you the consternation of Sir George, at so unu- 
sual and so unparliamentary a construction. He in- 
dignantly disclaimed the intention imputed to him, 
denied and deprecated the unfashionable inference, 
and acting on the broad scale of an impartial poli- 
cy, gave to one party the weight of his vote, and to 
the other, the (no doubt in his opinion) equally 
valuable acquisition of his eloquence ; — by the 
way, no unusual compromise amongst modern 
politicians. 

The proceedings of this dinner soon became 
public. Sir George, you may be sure, was little 
in love with his notoriety. However, gentlemen, 
the sufferings of the powerful are seldom without 
sympathy ; if they receive not the solace of the 
disinterested and the sincere, they are at least 
sure to find a substitute in the miserable profes- 
sions of an interested hypocrisy. Who could 
4 t imagine, that Sir George, of all men, was to drink 

from the spring of catholic consolation ? yet so it 
happened. Two men of that communion had the 
hardihood, and the servility, to frame an address 
to him, reflecting upon the pastor, who was its 
pride, and its ornament. This address, with the 
most obnoxious commentaries, was instantly pub- 
lished by the Derry Journalist, who from that 



O'MULLAN v. M'KORKILL. 127 

hour, down to the period of his ruin, has never 
ceased to persecute my client, with all that the 
most deliberate falsehood could invent, and all 
that the most infuriate bigotry could perpetrate. 
This Journal, I may as well now describe to you ; 
it is one of the numerous publications which the 
misfortunes of this unhappy land have generated, 
and which has grown into considerable affluence 
by the sad contributions of the public calamity. 
There is not a provincial village in Ireland, which 
some such official fiend does not infest, fabricating 
a gazette of fraud and falsehood, upon all who pre- 
sume to advocate her interests, or uphold the 
ancient religion of her people; — the worst foes of 
government, under pretence of giving it assistance ; 
the deadliest enemies to the Irish name, under the 
mockery of supporting its character; the most 
licentious, irreligious, illiterate banditti, that ever 
polluted the fair fields of literature, under the 
spoliated banner of the press. Bloated with the 
public spoil, and blooded in the chase of character, 
no abilities can arrest, no piety can awe ; no mis- 
fortune affect, no benevolence conciliate them ; 
the reputation of the living, and the memory of 
the dead, are equally plundered in their desolating 
progress ; even the awful sepulchre affords not an 
asylum to their selected victim. Human Hyenas ! 
they will rush into the sacred receptacle of death, 
gorging their ravenous and brutal rapine, amid the 
memorials of our last infirmity ! Such is a too true 
picture of what I hope unauthorizedly misnames 
itself the ministerial press of Ireland. Amid that 
polluted press, it is for you to say, whether The 
Londonderry Journal stands on an infamous ele- 
vation. When this address was published in the 
name of the catholics, that calumniated body, as 



123 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 

was naturally to be expected, became universally 
indignant. 

You may remember, gentlemen, amongst the 
many expedients resorted to by Ireland, Tor the 
recovery of her rights, after she had knelt session 
after session at the bar of the legislature, covered 
with the wounds of glory, and praying redemption 
from the chains that rewarded them; — you may re- 
member, I say, amongst many vain expedients 
of supplication and remonstrance, her catholic 
population delegated a board to consult on their 
affairs, and forward their petition. Of that body, 
fashionable as the topic has now become, far be it 
from me to speak with disrespect. It contained 
much talent, much integrity ; and it exhibited 
what must ever be to me an interesting spectacle, 
a great body of my fellow-men, and fellow-chris- 
tians, claiming admission into that constitution 
which their ancestors had achieved by theirvalour, 
and to which they were entitled as their inherit- 
ance. This is no time, this is no place for the 
discussion of that question; but since it does force 
itself incidentally upon me, I will say, that, as on 
the one hand, I cannot fancy a despotism more 
impious, or more inhuman, than the political de- 
basement here, on account of that faith by which 
men hope to win an happy eternity hereafter ; so 
on the other, I cannot fancy a vision in its 

ASPECT MORE DIVINE THAN THE ETERNAL CROSS, 
RED WITH THE MARTYR^ BLOOD AND RADIENT 
WITH THE PILGRIM'S HOPE, REARED BY THE PATRIOT 
AND THE CHRISTIAN HAND, HIGH IN THE VAN OF 

universal liberty. Of this board the two volun- 
teer framers of the address happened to be mem- 
bers. The body who deputed them, instantly 
assembled and declared their delegation void. You 



O'MULLAN v. M'KORKILL. 129 

would suppose, gentlemen, that after this decisive 
public brand of reprobation, those officious med- 
dlers would have avoided its recurrence, by retir- 
ing from scenes for which nature and education 
had totally unfitted them. Far, however, from 
acting under any sense of shame, those excluded 
outcasts even summoned a meeting to appeal from 
the sentence the public opinion had pronounced 
on them. The meeting assembled, and after 
almost the day's deliberation on their conduct, 
the former sentence was unanimously confirmed. 
The men did not deem it prudent to attend them- 
selves, but at a late hour, when the business 
was concluded, when the resolutions had passed, 
when the chair was vacated, when the multitude 
was dispersing, they attempted with some Orange 
followers to obtrude into the chapel, which in 
large cities, such as Derry, is the usual place of 
meeting. An angry spirit arose among the peo- 
ple. Mr. O'Mullan as was his duty, locked the 
doors to preserve the house of God from profa- 
nation, and addressed the crowd in such terms, as 
induced them to repair peaceably to their respec- 
tive habitations. I need not paint to you the bitter 
emotions with which these deservedly disappointed 
men were agitated. All hell was at work within 
them, and a conspiracy was hatched against the 
peace of my client, the vilest, the foulest, the most 
infernal that ever vice devised, or demonsexecuted. 
Restrained from exciting a riot by his interference, 
they actually swore a riot against him, prosecuted 
him to conviction, worked on the decaying in- 
tellect of his bishop to desert him, and amid the 
savage war-whoop of this slanderous Journal, all 
along inflaming the public mind by libels the most 
atrocious, finally flung this poor, religious, unof- 
17 



130 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 

fending priest, into a damp and desolate dungeon* 
where the very iron that bound, had more of hu- 
manity than the despots that surrounded him. I 
am told, they triumph much in this conviction. 
I seek not to impugn the verdict of that jury ; 
I have no doubt they acted conscientiously. It 
weighs not with me that every member of my 
client's creed was carefully excluded from that 
.jury — no doubt they acted conscientiously. It weighs 
not with me that every man empannelled on the 
trial of the priest, was exclusively Protestant, and 
that, too, in a city so prejudiced, that not long 
ago, by their corporation-law, no Catholic dare 
breathe the air of Heaven within its walls — no 
doubt they acted conscientiously. It weighs not 
with me, that not three days previously, one of 
that jury was heard publicly to declare, he wished 
he could persecute the Papist to his death — no 
doubt they acted conscientiously. It weighs not 
with me, that the public mind had been so in- 
flamed by the exasperation of this libeller, that an 
impartial trial was utterly impossible. Let them 
enjoy their triumph. But for myself, knowing 
him as I do, here in the teeth of that conviction, 
I declare it, I would rather be that man, so as- 
persed, so imprisoned, so persecuted, and have his 
consciousness, than stand the highest of the court- 
liest rabble that ever crouched before the foot of 
power, or fed upon the people — plundered alms of 
despotism. Oh, of short duration is such demo- 
nine triumph. Oh, blind and groundless is the 
hope of vice, imagining its victory can be more than 
for the moment. This very day I hope will prove, 
that if virtue suffers, it is but for a season ; and that 
sooner or later their patience tried, and their puri- 



O'MULLAN v. M'KORKILL. 131 

ty testified, prosperity will crown the interests of 
probity and worth. 

Perhaps you imagine, Gentlemen, that his per- 
son imprisoned, his profession gone, his prospects 
ruined, and what he held dearer than all, his cha- 
racter defamed ; the malice of his enemies might 
have rested from persecution. " Thus bad begins, 
but worse remains behind." Attend, I beseech 
you, to what now follows, because I have come in 
order, to the particular libel, which we have se- 
lected from the •innumerable calumnies of this 
Journal, and to which we call your peculiar con- 
sideration. Business of moment, to the nature of 
which, I shall feel it my duty presently to ad- 
vert, called Mr. O'Mullan to the metropolis. — 
Through the libels of the defendant, he was at 
this time in disfavour with his bishop, and a 
rumour had gone abroad, that he was never again 
to revisit his ancient congregation. The bishop 
in the interim returned to Deny, and on the 
Sunday following, went to officiate at the parish 
chapel. All ranks crowded tremulously round 
him ; the widow sought her guardian ; the orphan 
his protector ; the poor their patron ; the rich 
their guide ; the ignorant their pastor ; all, all, 
with one voice, demanded his recall, by whose 
absence the graces, the charities, the virtues of 
life, were left orphans in their communion. Can 
you imagine a more interesting spectacle ? The 
human mind never conceived — the human hand 
never depicted a more instructive or delightful 
picture. Yet will you believe it ! out of this very 
circumstance, the defendant fabricated the most 
audacious, and if possible, the most cruel of his 
libels. Hear his words: — "O'Mullan," says he, 
" was convicted and degraded, for assaulting his 



132 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 

own bishop, and the recorder of Derry, in the 
parish chapel !" Observe the disgusting malignity 
of the libel — observe the crowded damnation 
which it accumulates on my client—observe all 
the aggravated crime which it embraces. First, 
he assaults his venerable bishop — the great eccle- 
siastical patron, to whom he was sworn to be 
obedient, and against whom he never conceived 
or articulated irreverence. JSext, he assaults the 
recorder of Derry — a privy councillor, the su- 
preme municipal authority of 'the city. And 
where does he do so? Gracious God, in the very 
temple of thy worship ! That is, says the inhuman 
libeller — he a citizen — he a clergyman insulted 
not only the civil but the ecclesiastical authorities, 
in the face of man, and in the house of prayer ; 
trampling contumeliously upon all human law, 
amid the sacred altars, where he believed the 
Almighty witnessed the profanation ! I am so 
horror-struck at this blasphemous and abominable 
turpitude, I can scarcely proceed. What will you 
say, gentlemen, when I inform you, that at the 
very time this atrocity was imputed to him, he 
was in the city of Dublin, at a distance of 120 
miles from the venue of its commission ! But, oh ! 
when calumny once begins its work, how vain are 
the impediments of time and distance ! Before the 
sirocco of its breath all nature withers, and age, 
and sex and innocence, and station, perish, in the 
unseen, but certain desolation of its progress ! 
Do you wonder O'Mullan sunk before these ac- 
cumulated calumnies ; do you wonder the feeble 
were intimidated, the wavering decided, the 
prejudiced confirmed? He was forsaken by his 
bishop; he was denounced by his enemies — his 
very friends fled in consternation from the " strick- 



O'MULLANv. M'KORKILL. 133 

en deer;" he was banished from the scenes of his 
childhood, from the endearments of his youth, 
from the field of his fair and honourable ambition. 
In vain did he resort to strangers for subsistence ; 
on the very wings of the wind, the calumny pre- 
ceded him ; and from that hour to this, a too true 
apostle, he has been " a man of sorrows," " not 
knowing where to lay his head." I will not ap- 
peal to your passions ; alas ! how inadequate am 
I to depict his sufferings; you must take them 
from the evidence. I have told you, that at the 
time of those infernally fabricated libels, the plain- 
tiff was in Dublin, and I promised to advert to 
the cause by which his absence was occasioned. 

Observing in the course of his parochial duties, 
the deplorable, I had almost said the organized ig- 
norance of the Irish peasantry — an ignorance whenee 
all their crimes and most of their sufferings origin- 
ate j observing also, that Jthere was no publicly 
established literary institution to relieve them, save 
only to the charter-schools, which tendered learn- 
ing to the shivering child, as a bounty upon apos- 
tacy to the faith of his fathers ; he determined if 
possible to give them the lore of this world, with- 
out offering as a mortgage upon the inheritance 
of the next. He framed the prospectus of a 
school, for the education of five hundred children, 
and went to the metropolis to obtain subscriptions 
for the purpose. I need not descant upon the 
great general advantage, or to this country the 
peculiarly patriotic consequences which the suc- 
cess of such a plan must have produced. No 
doubt, you have all personally considered — no 
doubt, you have all personally experienced, that 
of all the blessings which it has pleased Providence 
to allow us to cultivate, there is not one which 



134 SPEECH IN THE CASE OP 

breathes a purer fragrance, or bears a heavenlier 
aspect than education. It is a companion which 
no misfortunes can depress, no clime destroy, no 
enemy alienate, no despotism enslave ; at home a 
friend, abroad an introduction, in solitude a solace, 
in society an ornament, it chastens vice, it guides 
virtue, it gives at once a grace and government to 
genius. Without it, what is man ? A splendid slave! 
a reasoning savage, vacillating between the dignity 
of an intelligence derived from God, and the de- 
gradation of passions participated with brutes; 
and in the accident of their alternate ascendancy 
shuddering at the terrors of an hereafter, or em- 
bracing the horrid hope of annihilation. What is 
this wondrous world of his residence ? 

A mighty maze, and all without a plan ; 

a dark and desolate and dreary cavern, without 
wealth, or ornament or order. But light up with- 
in it the torch of knowledge, and how wondrous 
the transition ! The seasons change, the atmos- 
phere breathes, the landscape lives, earth unfolds 
its fruits, ocean rolls in its magnificence, the 
heavens display their constellated canopy, and the 
grand animated spectacle of nature rises revealed 
before him, its varieties regulated, and its mis- 
teries resolved ! The phenomena which bewilder, 
the prejudices which debase, the superstitions 
which enslave, vanish before education. Like the 
holy symbol which blazed upon the cloud before 
the hesitating Constantine, if man follow but its pre- 
cepts, purely, it will not only lead him to the vic- 
tories of this world, but open the very portals of 
Omnipotence for his admission. Cast your eye 
over the monumental map of ancient grandeur. 



O'MULL AN v. M'KORKILL. 1 35 

once studded with the stars of empire, and the 
splendours of philosophy. What erected the little 
state of Athens into a powerful commonwealth, 
placing in her hand the sceptre of legislation and 
wreathing round her brow the imperishable chap- 
let of literary fame : what extended Rome, the 
haunt of banditti, into universal empire ; what 
animated Sparta with that high unbending, ada- 
mantine courage, which conquered nature herself, 
and has fixed her in the sight of future ages, a 
model of public virtue, and a proverb of national 
independence ? What but those wise public in- 
stitutions which strengthened their minds with 
early application, informed their infancy with the 
principles of action, and sent them into the world, 
too vigilant to be deceived by its calms, and too 
vigorous to be shaken by its whirlwinds ? But 
surely, if there be a people in the world, to whom 
the blessings of education are peculiarly appli- 
cable, it is the Irish people. Lively, ardent, intel- 
ligent, and sensitive ; nearly all their acts spring 
from impulse, and no matter how that impulse be 
given, it is immediately adopted, and the adoption 
and the execution are identified. It is this prin- 
ciple, if principle it can be called, which renders 
Ireland, alternately, the poorest and the proudest 
country in the world ; now chaining her in the 
very abyss of crime, now lifting her to the very- 
pinnacle of glory ; which in the poor, proscribed, 
peasant catholic, crowds the gaol and feeds the 
gibbet; which in the more fortunate, because 
more educated protestant, leads victory a captive 
at her car, and holds echo mute at her eloquence ; 
making a national monopoly of fame, and, as it 
were, attempting to naturalize the achievements 
of the universe. In order that this libel may want 



136 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 

no possible aggravation, the defendant published 
it when my client was absent on this work of pa- 
triotism ; he published it when he was absent; he 
published it when he was absent on a work of 
virtue; and he published it on all the authority 
of his local knowledge, when that very local 
knowledge must have told him, that it was des- 
titute oi the shadow of a foundation. Can you 
imagine a more odious complication of all that 
is deliberate in malignity, and all that is depraved 
in crime ? I promised, gentlemen, that 1 would 
not harrow your hearts, by exposing all that 
agonizes mine, in the contemplation of individual 
suffering. There is, however, one subject con- 
nected with this trial, public in its nature, and 
universal in its interest, which imperiously calls 
for an exemplary verdict; 1 mean the liberty of 
the press — a theme which I approach with mingled 
sensations of awe, and agony, and admiration. — 
Considering all that we too fatally have seen — all 
that, perhaps, too fearfully we may have cause to 
apprehend, I feel myself cling to that residuary 
safeguard, with an affection no temptations can 
seduce, with a suspicion no anodyne can lull, with 
a fortitude that peril but enfuriates. In the dire- 
ful retrospect of experimental despotism, and the 
hideous prospect of its possible re-animation, I 
clasp it with the desperation of a widowed female, 
who, in the desolation of her house, and the de- 
struction of her household, hurries the last of her 
offspring through the flames, at once the relic of 
her joy, the depository of her wealth, and the re- 
membrancer of her happiness. It is the duty of 
us all to guard strictly this inestimable privilege — 
a privilege which can never be destroyed, save bj 
the licentiousness of those who wilfully abuse it. 



O'MULLAN v. M'KORKILL. 137 

no, it is not in the arrogance of power; no, it is 
not in the artifices of law ; no, it is not in the fa- 
tuity of princes ; no, it is not in the venality of 
parliaments, to crush this mighty, this majestic 
privilege; reviled, it will remonstrate ; murder- 
ed, IT WILL REVIVE ; BURIED, IT WILL RE-ASCEND ; THE 
VERY ATTEMPT AT ITS OPPRESSION WILL PROVE THE 
TRUTH OF ITS IMMORTALITY, AND THE ATOM THAT PRE- 
SUMED TO SPURN, WILL FADE AWAY BEFORE THE TRUM- 
PET of its retribution ! Man holds it on the same 
principle that he does his soul; the powers of this 
world cannot prevail against it ; it can only perish 
through its own depravity. What then shall be his 
fate, through whose instrumentality it is sacrificed ? 
Nay more, what shall be his fate, who, intrusted 
with the guardianship of its security, becomes the 
traitorous accessory to its ruin ? Nay more, what 
shall be his fate, by whom its powers delegated 
for the public good, are converted into the cala- 
mities of private virtue; against whom, industry 
denounced, merit undermined, morals calumniated, 
piety aspersed, all through the means confided for 
their protection, cry aloud for vengeance ? What 
shall be his fate ? Oh, I would hold such a monster, 
so protected, so sanctified, and so sinning, as I would 
some demon, who, going forth consecrated, in the 
name of the Deity, the book of life on his lips, and 
the dagger of death beneath his robe, awaits the 
sigh of piety, as the signal of plunder, and unveins 
the heart's blood of confiding adoration ! Should 
not such a case as this require some palliation ? Is 
there any? Perhaps the defendant might have 
been misled as to circumstances ? No, he lived 
upon the spot, and had the best possible inform- 
ation. Do you think he believed in the truth of 
the publication ? No ; he knew that in every syl- 
18 



138 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 

lable it was as false as perjury. Do you think tnat 
an anxiety for the catholic community might have 
inflamed him against the imaginary dereliction of its 
advocate ? JN o ; the very essence of his J ournal is 
prejudice. Do you think that in the ardour of li- 
]3erty he might have venially transgressed its boun- 
daries ? No; in every line he licks the sores, and 
pampers the pestilence of authority. I do not ask 
you to be stoics in your investigation. If you can 
discover in this libel one motive inferentiallv moral, 
one single virtue which he has plundered and mis- 
applied, give him its benefit. I will not demand 
such an effort of vour faith, as to imagine, that 
his northern constitution could, by any miracle, 
be fired into the admirable but mistaken energy 
of enthusiasm ; — that he could for one moment 
have felt the inspired phrenzy of those loftier spirits, 
who, under some daring but divine delusion, rise 
into the arch of an ambition so bright, so baneful, 
yet so beauteous, as leaves the world in wonder 
whether it should admire or mourn — whether it 
should weep or worship 1 No ; you will not only 
search in vain for such a palliative, but you will 
find this publication springing from the most odious 
origin, and disfigured by the most foul accompani- 
ments, founded in a bigotry at which hell rejoices, 
crouching with a sycophancy at which flattery 
blushes, deformed by a falsehood at which perjury 
wo' fid hesitate, and, to crown the climax of its 
crowded infamies, committed under the sacred 
sfielter of the press; as if this false, slanderous, 
sycophantic slavp, could not assassinate private 
worth without polluting public privilege; as if he 
could not sacrifice the character of the pious with- 
out profaning the protection of the free; as if he 
eould not poison learning, liberty and religion, 



O'MULLAN v. M'KGRKILL. 139 

unless he filled his chalice from the very font 
whence they might have expected to derive the 
waters of their salvation ! 

Now, gentlemen, as to the measure of jour 
damages : — You are the best judges on that sub- 
ject ; though, indeed, I have been asked, and I 
heard the question with some surprise, — why it is 
that we have brought this case at all to be tried 
before you. To that I might give at once an un- 
objectionable answer, namely, that the law allowed 
us. But I will deal much more candidly with you. 
We brought it here, because it was as far as pos- 
sible from the scene of prejudice ; because no pos- 
sible partiality could exist; because, in this happy 
and united county, less of the bigotry which dis- 
tracts the rest of Ireland exists, than in any other 
with which we are acquainted ; because the nature 
of the action, which we have mercifully brought 
in place of a criminal prosecution, — the usual 
course pursued in the present day, at least against 
the independent press of Ireland, — gives them, 
if they have it, the power of proving a justifica- 
tion ; and 1 perceive they have emptied half the 
north here for the purpose. But 1 cannot anti- 
cipate an objection, which, no doubt, shall not be 
made. If this habitual libeller should character- 
istically instruct his counsel to hazard it, that 
learned gentleman is much too wise to adopt it, 
and must know you much too well to insult you 
by its utterance. What damages, then, gentlemen, 
can you give ? I am content to leave the defend- 
ant's crimes altogether out of the question, but 
how can you recompense the sufferings of my 
client ? Who shall estimate the cost of priceless 
reputation — that impress which gives this human 
dross its currency, without which we stand de« 




140 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 

spised, debased, depreciated ? Who shall repair 
it injured? Who can redeem it lost? Oh! well 
and truly does the great philosopher of poetry 
esteem the world's wealth as " trash" in the com- 
parison. Without it, gold has no value, birth no 
distinction, station no dignity, beauty no charms, 
age no reverence; or, should I not rather say, 
without it every treasure impoverishes, every grace 
deforms, every dignity degrades, and all the arts, 
the decorations, and accomplishments of life, 
stand, like the beacon-blaze upon a rock, warning 
the world that its approach is danger — that its 
contact is death. The wretch without it is under 
an eternal quarantine ; — no friend to greet — no 
home to harbour him. The voyage of his life be- 
comes a joyless peril ; and in the midst of all 
ambition can achieve, or avarice amass, or rapaci- 
ty plunder, he tosses on the surge — a buoyant pesti- 
lence ! But, gentlemen, let me not degrade into 
the selfishness of individual safety, or individual 
exposure, this universal principle : it testifies an 
higher, a more ennobling origin. It is this which, 
consecrating the humble circle of the hearth, will 
at times extend itself to the circumference of the 
horizon ; which nerves the arm of the patriot to 
save his country ; which lights the lamp of the 
philosopher to amend man; which, if it does not 
inspire, will yet invigorate the martyr to merit 
.* immortality; which, when one world's agony is 

passed, and the glory of another is dawning, will 
prompt the prophet, even in his chariot of fire, 
and in his vision of Heaven, to bequeath to man- 
kind the mantle of his memory ! Oh divine, oh 
delightful legacy of a spotless reputation ! Rich 
is the inheritance it leaves; pious the example it 
testifies; pure, precious, and imperishable, the 



O'MULLAN v. M'KORKILL. 141 

hope which it inspires ! Can you conceive a more 
atrocious injury than to filch from its possessor 
this inestimable benefit — to rob society of its 
charm, and solitude of its solace ; not only to 
outlaw life, but to attaint death, converting the 
very grave, the refuge of the sufferer, into the 
gate of infamy and of shame ! I can conceive 
few crimes beyond it. He who plunders my pro- 
perty takes from me that which can be repaired 
by time : but what period can repair a ruined rep- 
utation ? He who maims my person affects that 
which medicine may remedy : but what herb has 
sovereignty over the wounds of slander ? He 
who ridicules my poverty, or reproaches my pro- 
fession, upbraids me with that which industry may- 
retrieve, and integrity may purify : but what riches 
shall redeem the bankrupt fame ? what power shall 
blanch the sullied snoiv of character ? Can there 
be an injury more deadly ? Can there be a crime 
mOre cruel ? It is without remedy — it is without 
antidote — it is without evasion ! The reptile ca- 
lumny is ever on the watch. From the fascination 
of its eye no activity can escape ; from the venom 
of its fang no sanity can recover. It has no en- * 
joyment but crime ; it has no prey but virtue ; it 
has no interval from the restlessness of its malice, 
save when, bloated with its victims, it grovels to 
disgorge them at the withered shrine, where envy 
idolizes her own infirmities. Under such a visita- 
tion how dreadful would be the destiny of the vir- 
tuous and the good, if the providence of our con- 
stitution had not given you the power, as, 1 trust, 
you will have the principle, to bruise the head of 
the serpent, and crush and crumble the altar of its 
idolatry! 









142 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 



And now, gentlemen, having toiled, through 
this narrative of unprovoked and pitiless persecu- 
tion, I should with pleasure consign my client to 
your hands, if a more imperative duty did not still 
remain to me, and that is, to acquit him of every 
personal motive in the prosecution of this action. 
No ; in the midst of slander, and suffering, and 
severities unexampled, he has had no thought, 
but, that as his enemies evinced how malice could 
persecute, he should exemplify how religion could 
endure ; that if his piety failed to affect the op- 
pressor, his patience might at least avail to fortify 
the afflicted. He was as the rock of Scripture 
before the face of infidelity. The rain of the de- 
luge had fallen — it only smoothed his asperities : 
the wind of the tempest beat — it only blanched 
his brow : the rod, not of prophecy, but of per- 
secution, smote him ; and the desert, glittering with 
the gospel dew, became a miracle of the faith it 
would have tempted ! No, gentlemen ; not self- 
ishly has he appealed to this tribunal : but the 
venerable religion wounded in his character, — 
but the august priesthood vilified in his person, — 
but the doubts of the sceptical, hardened hy his 
acquiescence, — but the fidelity of the feeble, ha- 
zarded by his forbearance, goaded him from the 
profaned privacy of the cloister into this repulsive 
scene of public accusation. In him this reluctance 
springs from a most natural and characteristic de- 
licacy : in us it would become a most overstrained 
injustice. No, gentlemen: though with him we 
must remember morals outraged, religion assailed, 
law violated, the priesthood scandalized, the press 
betrayed, and all the disgusting calendar of ab- 
stract evil; yet with him we must not reject 
the injuries of the individual sufferer. We must 



O'MULLAN v. M'KORKILL. 143 

picture *to ourselves^a young man, partly by the 
self-denial of parental love, partly by the ener- 
gies of personal exertion, struggling into a pro- 
fession, where, by the pious exercise of his ta- 
lents, he may make the fame, the wealth, the 
flatteries of this world, so many angel heralds to 
the happiness of the next. His precept is a trea- 
sure to the poor ; his practice, a model to the rich. 
When he reproves, sorrow seeks his presence as a 
sanctuary ; and in his path of peace, should he 
pause by the death-bed of despairing sin, the soul 
becomes imparadised in the light of his benedic- 
tion ! Imagine, gentlemen, you see him thus ; 
and then, if you can, imagine vice so desperate as 
to defraud the world of so fair a vision. Anti- 
cipate for a moment the melancholy evidence we 
must too soon adduce to you. Behold him by foul, 
deliberate, and infamous calumny, robbed of the 
profession he had so struggled to obtain, swindled 
from the flock he had so laboured to ameliorate, 
torn from the school where infant virtue vainly 
mourns an artificial orphanage, hunted from the 
home of his youth, from the friends of his heart, 
a hopeless, fortuneless, companionless exile, hang- 
ing, in some stranger scene, on the precarious pity 
of the few, whose charity might induce their com- 
passion to bestow, what this remorseless slanderer 
would compel their justice to withhold ! I will 
not pursue this picture ; I will not detain you 
from the pleasure of your possible compensation ; 
for oh ! divine is the pleasure you are destined to 
experience ; — dearer to your hearts shall be the 
sensation, than to your pride shall be the dignity 
it will give you. What ! though the people will 
hail the saviours of their pastor : what ! though 
the priesthood will hallow the guardians of their 




J44 SPEECH 

brother ; though many a peasant heart will leap 
at jour name, and many an infant eye will embalm 
their fame who restored to life, to station, to dig- 
nity, to character, the venersi »le friend who taught 
their trembling tongues to lisp the rudiments of 
virtue and religion, still dearer than all will be 
the consciousness of the deed. Nor, believe me, 
countrymen, will it rest here. Oh no ! if there be 
light in instinct, or truth in Revelation, believe me, 
at that awful hour, when you shall await the last 
inevitable verdict, the eye of your hope will not 
be the less bright, nor the agony of your ordeal 
the more acute, because you shall have, by this 
day's deed, redeemed the Almighty's persecuted 
Apostle, from the grasp of an insatiate malice — 
from the fang of a worse than Philistine persecution. 






IN THE 

CASE OF CONN AG ETON v. DILLON: 

DELIVERED IN THE COUNTY COURT-HOUSE 

ROSCOMMON. 



My Lord and Gentlemen, 

In this case I am one of the counsel for the 
plaintiff, who has directed me to explain to you 
the wrongs for which, at your hands, he solicits 
reparation. It appears to me a case which un- 
doubtedly merits much consideration, as well from 
the novelty of its appearance amongst us, as for the 
circumstances by which it is attended. Nor am I 
ashamed to say, that in my mind, not the least 
interesting of those circumstances is the poverty 
of the man who has made this appeal to me. — 
Few are the consolations which soothe — hard 
must be the heart which does not feel for him.— 
He is, gentlemen, a man of lowly birth and humble 
station ; with little wealth but from the labour of 
his hands, with no rank but the integrity of his 
character, with no recreation but in the circle of his 
home, and with no ambition, but, when his days are 
full, to leave that little circle the inheritance of an 
honest name, and the treasure of a good man's 
19 



m 



146 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 

memory. Far inferior, indeed, is he in this respect 
to his more fortunate antagonist. He, on the 
contrary, is amply either blessed or cursed with 
those qualifications which enable a man to adorn 
or disgrace the society in which he lives. He is, 
I understand, the representative of an honourable 
name, the relative of a distinguished family, the 
supposed heir to their virtues, the indisputable 
inheritor of their riches. He has been for many 
years a resident of jour county, and has had the 
advantage of collecting round him all those re- 
collections, which, springing from the scenes of 
school-boy association, or from the more matured 
enjoyments of the man, crowd as it were uncon- 
sciously to the heart, and cling with a venial 
partiality to the companion and the friend. So 
impressed, in truth, has he been with these ad- 
vantages, that, surpassing the usual expenses of a 
trial, he has selected a tribunal where he vainly 
hopes such considerations will have weight, and 
where he well knows my client's humble rank can 
have no claim but that to which his miseries may 
entitle him. I am sure, however, he has wretchedly 
miscalculated. I know none of you personally ; 
but I have no doubt I am addressing men who 
will not prostrate their consciences before privilege 
or power; who will remember that there is a 
nobility above birth, and a wealth beyond riches ; 
who will feel that, as in the eye of that God to whose 
aid they have appealed, there is not the minutest . 
difference between the rag and the robe, so in the 
contemplation of that law which constitutes our 
boast, guilt can have no protection, or innocence 
no tyrant; men who will have pride in proving, 
that the noblest adage of our noble constitution is 
not an illusive shadow ; and that the peasant's cot- 



CONNAGHTON v. DILLON. 147 

tage, roofed with straw and tenanted by poverty, 
stands as inviolate from all invasion as the mansion 
of the monarch. 

My client's name, gentlemen, is Connaghton,. 
and when I have given you his name you have 
almost all his history. To cultivate the path of 
honest industry comprises, in one line, " the short 
and simple annals of the poor." This has been 
his humble, but at the same time most honourable 
occupation. It matters little with what artificial 
nothings chance may distinguish the name, or 
decorate the person : the child of lowly life, with 
virtue for its handmaid, holds as proud a title 
as the highest — as rich an inheritance as the 
wealthiest. Well has the poet of your country 
said — that 

" Princes or Lords may flourish or may fade, 
A breath can make them, as a breath has made j 
But a brave peasantry, their country's pride, 
When once destroy'd can never be supplied." 

For all the virtues which adorn that peasantry, 
which can render humble life respected, or give 
the higest stations their most permanent dis- 
tinctions, my client stands conspicuous. An 
hundred years of sad vicissitude, and, in this land, 
often of strong temptation, have rolled away since 
the little farm on which he lives received his 
family ; and during all that time not one accu- 
sation has disgraced, not one crime has sullied 
it. The same spot has seen his grandsire and his 
parent pass away from this world ; the village- 
memory records their worth, and the rustic tear 
hallows their resting-place. After all, when life's 
mockeries shall vanish from before us, and the 
heart that now beats in the proudest bosom, here, 






148 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 

shall moulder unconscious beneath its kindred clay, 
art cannot erect a nobler monument, or genius 
compose a purer panegyric. Such, gentlemen, 
was almost the only inheritance with which my 
client entered the world. He did not disgrace it ; 
his youth his manhood, his age, up to this moment, 
have passed without a blemish ; and he now stands 
confessedly the head of the little village in which 
he lives. About five-and-twenty years ago he 
married the sister of a highly respectable Roman 
catholic clergyman, by whom he had a family of 
seven children, whom they educated in the prin- 
ciples of morality and religion, and who, until the 
defendant's interference, were the pride of their 
humble home, and the charm or the consolation 
of its vicissitudes. In their virtuous children the 
rejoicing parents felt their youth renewed, their 
age made happy : the days of labour became 
holidays in their smile ; and if the hand of affliction 
pressed on them, they looked upon their little 
ones, and their mourning ended. I cannot paint 
the glorious host of feelings; the joy, the love, 
the hope, the pride, the blendid paradise of rich 
emotions with which the God of nature fills the 
father's heart when he beholds his child in all its 
filial loveliness, when the vision of his infancy 
rises as it were reanimate before him, and a divine 
vanity exaggerates every trifle into some myste- 
rious omen, which shall smooth his aged wrinkles, 
and make his grave a monument of honour ! / 
cannot describe them ; but if there be a parent on 
the jury, he will comprehend me. It is stated to 
me, that of all his children there were none more 
likely to excite such feelings in the plaintiff than 
the unfortunate subject of the present action ; she 
was his favourite daughter, and she did not shame 



CONNAGHTON v. DILLON. 149 

bis preference. You shall find most satisfactorily, 
that she was without stain or imputation ; an aid 
and a blessing to her parents, and an example to 
her younger sisters, who looked up to her for in- 
struction. She took a pleasure in assisting in the 
industry of their home : and it was at a neigh- 
bouring market, where she went to dispose of the 
little produce of that industry, that she unhappily 
attracted the notice of the defendant. Indeed, 
such a situation was not without its interest, — a 
young female, in the bloom of her attractions, 
exerting her faculties in a parent's service, is an 
object lovely in theey e of God, and, one would 
suppose, estimable in the eye of mankind. Far 
different, however, were the sensations which she 
excited in the defendant. He saw her arrayed, as 
he confesses, in charms that enchanted him ; but 
her youth, her beauty, the smile of her innocence, 
and the piety of her toil, but inflamed a brutal and 
licentious lust, that should have blushed itself away 
in such a presence. What cared he for the conse- 
quences of his gratification ? — There was 

No honour, no relenting ruth, 



•To paint the parents fondling o'er their child, 
Then show the ruin'd maid, and her distraction wild I 

What thought he of the home he was to desolate ? 
What thought he of the happiness he was to 
plunder ? His sensual rapine paused not to con- 
template the speaking picture of the cottage-ruin, 
the blighted hope, the broken heart, the parent's 
agony, and, last and most withering in the woful 
group, the wretched victim herself starving on the 
sin of a promiscuous prostitution, and at length 
perhaps, with her own hand, anticipating the more 



•' 



150 SPEECH IN THE CASE OP 

tedious murder of its diseases ! He need not, if 
I am instructed rightly, have tortured his fancy 
for the miserable consequences of hope bereft, and 
expectation plundered. Through no very distant 
vista, he might have seen the form of deserted 
loveliness weeping over the worthlessness of his 
worldly expiation, and warning him, that as there 
were cruelties no repentance could atone, so there 
were sufferings neither wealth, nor time, nor ab- 
sence could alleviate.* If his memory should fail 
him, if he should deny the picture, no man can 
tell him half so efficiently as the venerable advocate 
he has so judiciously selected, that a case might 
arise, where, though the energy of native virtue 
should defy the spoliation of the person, still 
crushed affection might leave an infliction on the 
mind, perhaps less deadly, but certainly not less 
indelible. I turn from this subject with an indig- 
nation which tortures me into brevity ; I turn to the 
agents by which this contamination was effected. 

I almost blush to name them, yet they were 
worthy of their vocation. They were no other 
than a menial servant of Mr. Dillon ; and a base, 
abandoned, profligate ruffian, a brother-in-law of 
the devoted victim herself, whose bestial appetites 
he bribed into subserviancy ! It does seem as if 
by such a selection he was determined to degrade 
the dignity of the master while he violated the 
finer impulses of the man, by not merely associating 
with his own servant but by diverting the purest 

* Mr. Phillips here alluded to a verdict of 5000/. obtained 
at the late Galway Assizes against the defendant, at the suit of 
Miss Wilson, a very beautiful and interesting young lady, for a 
breach of promise of marriage. Mr. Whitestone, who now 
pleaded for Mr. Dillon, was Miss Wilson's advocate against bim 
on the occasion alluded t#. 



CONNAGHTON v. DILLON. 151 

streams of social affinity into the vitiated sewer of 
his enjoyment. Seduced by such instruments into 
a low public-house at Athlone, this unhappy girl 
heard, without suspicion, their mercenary panegyric 
of the defendant, when, to her amazement, but no 
doubt, according to their previous arrangement, 
he entered and joined their company. I do con- 
fess to you, gentlemen, when I first perused 
this passage in my brief, I flung it from me with 
a contemptuous incredulity. What! I exclaimed, 
as no doubt you are all ready to exclaim, can 
this be possible ? Is it thus I am to find the 
educated youth of Ireland occupied ? Is this 
the employment of the miserable aristocracy that 
yet lingers in this devoted country ? Am I to 
find them, not in the pursuit of useful science, 
not in the encouragement of arts or agriculture, 
not in the relief of an impoverished tenantry, not 
in the proud march of an unsuccessful but not 
less sacred patriotism, not in the bright page of 
warlike immortality, dashing its iron crown from 
guilty greatness, or feeding freedom's laurel with 
the blood of the despot ! — but am I to find them, 
amid drunken panders and corrupted slaves, de- 
bauching the innocence of village-life, and even 
amid the stews of the tavern, collecting or creating 
the materials of the brothel ! Gentlemen, I am still 
unwilling to believe it, with all the sincerity of 
Mr. Dillon's advocate, I do entreat you to reject it 
altogether, if it be not substantiated by the unim- 
peachable corroboration of an oath. As I am in- 
structed, he did not, at this time, alarm his vic- 
tim by any direct communication of his purpose ; 
he saw that " she was good as she was fair," and 
that a premature disclosure would but alarm her 
virtue into an impossibility of violation. His sa- 



#' 



152 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 

tellites, however, acted to admiration. They pro- 
duced some trifle which he had left for her dis- 
posal ; they declared he had long felt for her a 
sincere attachment ; as a proof that it was pure, 
they urged the modesty with which, at a first inter- 
view, elevated above her as he was, he avoided 
its disclosure. When she pressed the madness 
of the expectation which could alone induce her 
to consent to his addresses, they assured her 
that though in the first instance such an event 
was impossible, still in time it was far from being 
improbable ; that many men from such motives 
forgot altogether the difference of station, that 
Mr. Dillon's own family had already proved every 
obstacle might yield to an all-powerful* passion, 
and induce him to make her his wife, who had 
reposed an affectionate credulity on his honour ! 
Such were the subtle artifices to which he 
stooped. Do not imagine, however, that she 
yielded immediately and implicitly to their per- 
suasions ; I should scarcely wonder if she did. — 
Every day shows us the rich, the powerful, and 
the educated, bowing before the spell of ambition, 
or avarice, or passion, to the sacrifice of their ho- 
nour, their country, and their souls : what wonder, 
then, if a poor, ignorant, peasant girl had at once 
sunk before the united potency of such temptations ! 
But she did not. Many and many a time the 
truths which had been inculcated by her adoring 
parents rose up in arms ; and it was not until va- 
rious interviews, and repeated artifices, and un- 
tiring efforts, that she yielded her faith, her fame, 
and her fortunes, to the disposal of her seducer. — 
Alas, alas ! how little did she suppose that a mo- 
ment was to come when, every hope denounced 
and every expectation dashed, he was to fling her 



CONNAGHTON v. DILLON. 153 

tor a very subsistence on the charity or the crimes 
of the world she had renounced for him! How 
little did she reflect that in her humble station, 
unsoiled and sinless, she might look down upon 
the elevation to which vice would raise her ! Yes, 
even were it a throne, I say she might look down 
on it. There is not on this earth a lovelier vision; 
there is not for the skies a more angelic candidate 
than a young, modest maiden, robed in chastity ; 
no matter what its habitation, whether it be the 
palace or the hut : — 

" So dear to Heaven is saintly chastity, 
That when a soul is found sincerely so, 
A thousand liveried angels lackey her, 
Driving far off each thing of sin and guilt, 
And in clear dream and solemn vision 
Tell her of things that no gross ear can hear, 
Till oft converse with heavenly 'habitants 
Begins to cast a beam on the outward shape, 
The unpolluted temple of the mind, 
And turns it by degrees to the soul's essence,. 
Till all be made immortal i" 

Such is the supreme power of chastity, as de- 
scribed by one of our divinest bards, and the plea- 
sure which I feel in the recitation of such a passage 
is not a little enhanced, by the pride that few 
countries more fully afford its exemplification than 
our own. Let foreign envy decry us as it will, 

CHASTITY IS THE INSTINCT OF THE IRISH FEMALE : 

the pride of her talents, the power of her beauty, 
the splendour of her accomplishments, are but 
so many handmaids of this vestal virtue; it adorns 
her in the court, it ennobles her in the cottage ; 
whether she basks in prosperity or pines in sorrow, 
it clings about her like the diamond of the morning 
on the mountain flowret, trembling even in the ray 
20 



154 



SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 



that once exhibits and inhales it ! Rare in our 
land is the absence of this virtue. Thanks to the 
modesty that venerates ; thanks to the manliness 
that brands and avenges its violation. You have 
seen that it was by no common temptations even 
this humble villager yielded to seduction. 

I now come, gentlemen, to another fact in the 
progress of this transaction, betraying, in my 
mind, as base a premeditation, and as low and as 
deliberate a deception as 1 ever heard of. While 
this wretched creature was in a kind of counter- 
poise between her fear and her affection, struggling 
as well as she could between passion inflamed and 
virtue unextinguished, Mr. Dillon, ardently avowing 
that such an event as separation was impossible, 
ardently avowing an eternal attachment, insisted 
upon perfecting an article which should place her 
above the reach of contingencies. Gentlemen, 
you shall see this document voluntarily executed 
by an educated and estated gentleman of your 
county. I know not how you will feel, but for my 
part I protest I am in a suspense of admiration 
between the virtue of the proposal and the magni- 
ficent prodigality of the provision. Listen to the 
article : it is all in his own hand-writing : — " I pro- 
mise," says he, ".to give Mary Connaghton the 
sum of ten pounds sterling per annum, when I 
part with her ; but if she, the said Mary, should at 
any time hereafter conduct herself improperly, or 
(mark this, gentlemen) has done so before the draw* 
ing of this article, I am not bound to pay the sum 
of ten pounds, and this article becomes null and 
void as if the same was never executed. John 
Dillon." There, gentlemen, there is the notable 
and dignified document for you ! take it into your 
jury box, for I know not how to comment on it. — 






CONNAGHTON v. DILLON. 155 

Oh, yes, I have heard of ambition urging men to 
crime — I have heard of love inflaming even to 
madness — I have read of passion rushing over law 
and religion to enjoyment ; but never, until this, 
did I see a frozen avarice chilling the hot pulse of 
sensuality; and desire pause, before its brutish 
draught, that it might add deceit to desolation ! 
I need not tell you that having provided in the 
very execution of this article for its predetermined 
infringement ; that knowing, as he must, any sti- 
pulation for the purchase of vice to be invalid by 
our law ; that having in the body of this article 
inserted a provision against that previous pollution 
which his prudent caprice might invent hereafter, 
but which his own conscience, her universal cha- 
racter, and even his own desire for her possession, 
allassured him did not exist at the time, I need 
not tell you that he now urges the invalidity of that 
instrument; that he now presses that previous 
pollution ; that he refuses from his splendid income 
the pittance often pounds to the wretch he has 
ruined, and spurns her from him to pine beneath 
the reproaches of a parent's mercy, or linger out a 
living death in the charnel-houses of prostitution ! 
You see, gentlemen, to what designs like these 
may lead a man. I have no doubt, if Mr. Dillon 
had given his heart fair play,, had let his own 
nature gain a moment's ascendancy, he would not 
have acted so ; but there is something in guilt 
which infatuates its votaries forward ; it may 
begin with a promise broken, it will end with 
the home depopulated. But there is something in 
a seducer of peculiar turpitude. I know of no cha- 
racter so vile, so detestable. He is the vilest of 
robbers, for he plunders happiness ; the worst of 
murderers, for he murders innocence; his ap- 



156 



SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 



petites are of the brute, his arts of the demon; 
the heart of the child and the corse of the parent 
are the foundations of the altar which he rears to 
a lust, whose fires are the fires of hell, and whose 
incense is the agony of virtue ! I hope Mr. 
Dillon's advocate may prove that he does not de- 
serve to rank in such a class as this ; but if he does, 
I hope the infatuation inseparably connected with 
such proceedings may tempt him to deceive you 
through the same plea by which he has defrauded 
his miserable dupe. 

I dare him to attempt the defamation of a cha- 
racter, which, before his cruelties, never was even 
suspected. Happily, gentlemen, happily for her- 
self; this wretched creature, thus cast upon the 
world, appealed to the parental refuge she had 
forfeited. I need not describe to you the parent's 
anguish at the heart-rending discovery. God help 
the poor man when misfortune comes upon him ! 
How few are his resources ! how distant his conso- 
lation ! You must not forget, gentlemen, that is is 
not the unfortunate victim herself who appeals to 
you for compensation. Her crimes, poor wretch, 
have outlawed her from retribution, and, however, 
the temptations by which her erring nature was 
seduced may procure an audience from the ear of 
mercy, the stern morality of earthly law refuses 
their interference. No, no; it is the wretched 
parent who comes this day before you — his aged 
locks withered by misfortune, and his heart broken 
by crimes of which he was unconscious. He re- 
sorts to this tribunal, in the language of the law, 
claiming the value of his daughter's servitude ; 
but let it not be thought that it is for her mere 
manual labours he solicits compensation. No, you 
are to compensate him for all he has suffered, for 



CONNAGHTON v. DILLON. 15*7 

all he has to suffer, for feelings outraged, for grat- 
ifications plundered, for honest pride put to the 
blush, for the exiled endearments of his once 
happy home, for all those innumerable and in- 
stinctive ecstacies with which a virtuous daughter 
fills her father's heart, for which language is too 
poor to have a name, but of which nature is abun- 
dantly and richly eloquent ! Do not suppose I am 
endeavouring to influence you by the power of de- 
clamation. I am laying down to you the British 
law, as liberally expounded and solemnly adjudged. 
I speak the language of the English Lord Eldon, 
a judge of great experience and greater learning — 
(Mr. Phillips here cited several cases as decided 
by Lord Eldon.) — Such, gentlemen, is the lan- 
guage of Lord Eldon. I speak also on the autho- 
rity of our own Lord Avonmore, a judge who 
illuminated the bench by his genius, endeared it 
by his suavity, and dignified it by his bold uncom- 
promising probity ; one of those rare men, who 
hid the thorns of law beneath the brightest flowers 
of literature, and, as it were, with the wand of an 
enchanter, changed a wilderness into a garden ! I 
speak upon that high authority — but I speak on 
other authority paramount to all ! — on the autho- 
rity of nature rising up within the heart of man, 
and calling for vengeance upon such an outrage. 
God forbid, that in a case of this kind we we re to 
grope our way through the ruins of antiquity, and 
blunder over statutes, and burrow through black 
letter, in search of an interpretation which Provi- 
dence has engraved in living letters on every hu- 
man heart. Yes ; if there be one amongst you 
blessed with a daughter, the smile of whose infancy 
still cheers your memoir, and the promise of whose 
youth illuminates your nope, who has endeared the 






4 

m 



158 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 

toils of your manhood, whom you look up to as 
the solace of your declining years, whose embrace 
alleviated the pang of separation, whose glowing 
welcome hailed your oft anticipated return — oh, 
if there be one amongst you, to whom those re- 
collections are dear, to whom those hopes are 
precious — let him only fancy that daughter torn 
fronfhis caresses by a seducers arts, and .cast upon 
the world, robbed of her innocence, — and then 
let him ask his heart, " what money could reprise 

him r 

The defendant, gentlemen, cannot complain 
that I put it thus to you. If, in place of seducing, 
he had assaulted this poor girl — if he had at- 
tempted by force what he has achieved by fraud, 
his life would have been the forfeit; and yet how 
trifling in comparison would have been the parent's 
agony ! He has no right, then, to complain, if 
you should estimate this outrage at the price of 
his very existence ! I am told, indeed, this gentle- 
man entertains an opinion, prevalent enough in the 
age of a feudalism, as arrogant as it was barbarous, 
that the poor are only a specious of property, to be 
treated according to interest or caprice ! and that 
wealth is at once a patent for crime, and an ex- 
emption from its consequences. Happily for this 
land, the day of such opinions has passed over it 
— the eye of a purer feeling and more profound 
philosophy now beholds riches but as one of the 
aids to virtue, and sees in oppressed poverty only 
an additional stimulus to increased protection. A 
generous heart cannot help feeling, that in cases 
of this kind the poverty of the injured is a dread- 
ful aggravation. If the rich suffer, they have much 
to console them ; but when a poor man loses the 
darling of his heart — the sfle pleasure with which 



CONNAGHTON v. DILLON. 159 

nature blessed him — how abject, how cureless is 
the despair of his destitution ! Believe me, gentle- 
men, you have not only a solemn duty to perform, 
but you have an awful responsibility imposed upon 
you. You are this day, in some degree, trustees 
for the morality of the people — perhaps of the 
whole nation ; for, depend upon it, if the sluices of 
immorality are once opened among the lower or- 
ders, the frightful tide, drifting upon its surface all 
that is dignified or dear, will soon rise even to the 
habitations of the highest. I feel, gentlemen, I 
have discharged my duty — I am sure you will do 
your's. 1 repose my client with confidence in your 
hands ; and most fervently do I hope, that when 
evening shall find you at your happy fire-side, sur- 
rounded by the sacred circle of your children, you 
may not feel the heavy curse gnawing at your hearty 
of having let loose, unpunished, the prowler that 
may devour them. 



OE 

MR. PHILLIPS 

IN THE 

CASE OF CREIGHTON v. TOWNSEND : 

DELIVERED IN THE COURT OF COMMON PLEAS, 

DUBLIN. 



My Lord and Gentlemen, 

I am with my learned brethren counsel for the 
plaintiff My friend Mr. Curran has told you 
the nature of the action. It has fallen to my lot 
to state more at large to you the aggression by 
which it has been occasioned. Believe me it is 
with no paltry affectation of under-valuing my very 
humble powers that I wish he had selected some 
more experienced, or at least less credulous advo* 
cate. I feel I cannot do my duty; I am not fit 
to address you, I have incapacitated myself! I 
know not whether any of the calumnies which have 
so industriously anticipated this trial, have reached 
your ears ; but I do confess they did so wound 
and poison mine, that to satisfy my doubts I 
visited the house of misery and mourning, and the 
scene which set scepticism at rest, has set descrip- 
tion at defiance. Had I not yielde<J to those 
interested misrepresentations, I might from my 
brief have sketched the fact, and from my fancy 



SPEECH. 161 

drawn the consequences ; but as it is, reality 
rushes before my frighted memory, and silences 
the tongue and mocks the imagination. Believe 
me, gentlemen, you are impannelled there upon 
no ordinary occasion ; nominally, indeed, you are 
to repair a private wrong, and it is a wrong as 
deadly as human wickedness can inflict — as human 
weakness can endure ; a wrong which annihilates 
the hope of the parent and the happiness of the 
child ; which in one moment blights the. fondest 
anticipations of the heart, and darkens the social 
hearth, and worse than depopulates the habitations 
of the happy ! But, gentlemen, high as it is, this 
is far from your exclusive duty. You are to do 
much more. You are to say whether an example 
of such transcendant turpitude is to stalk forth 
for public imitation — whether national morals are 
to have the law for their protection, or imported 
crime is to feed upon impunity — whether chastity 
and religion are still to be permitted to linger in 
this province, or it is to become one loathsome den 
of legalized prostitution — whether the sacred vo- 
lume of the gospel, and the venerable statutes of 
the law are still to be respected, or converted in- 
to a pedestal on which the mob and the military 
are to erect the idol of a drunken adoration. Gen- 
tlemen, these are the questions you are to try ; 
hear the facts on which your decision must be 
founded. 

It is now about five-and-twenty years since the 
plaintiff, Mr. Creighton, commenced business as a 
slate merchant in the city of Dublin. His vocation 
was humble, it is true, but it was nevertheless 
honest; and though, unlike his opponent, the 
heights of ambition lay not before him, the path 
of respectability did — he approved himself a good 
21 



162 



SPEECH IN THE CASE OP 



man and a respectable citizen. Arrived at the age 
of manhood, he sought not the gratification of its 
natural desires by adultery or seduction. For him 
the home of honesty was sacred ; for him the poor 
man's child was unassailed ; no domestic desolation 
mourned his enjoyment; no anniversary of wo 
commemorated his achievements ; from his own 
sphere of life naturally and honourably he selected 
a companion, whose beauty blessed his bed, and 
whose virtues consecrated his dwelling. Eleven 
lovely children blessed their union, the darlings of 
their heart, the delight of their evenings, and as 
they blindly anticipated, the prop and solace of 
their approaching age. Oh ! sacred wedded love ! 
how dear ! how delightful ! how divine are thy 
enjoyments ; Contentment crowns thy board, affec- 
tion glads thy fireside ; passion, chaste but ardent, 
modest but intense, sighs o'er thy couch, the atmos- 
phere of paradise ! Surely, surely, if this conse- 
crated right can acquire from circumstances a fac- 
titious interest, 'tis when we see it cheering the 
poor man's home, or shedding over the dwelling of 
misfortune the light of its warm and lovely con- 
solation. Unhappily, gentlemen, it has that interest 
here. That capricious power which often dignifies 
the worthless hypocrite, as often wounds the in- 
dustrious and the honest. The late ruinous contest, 
having in its career confounded all the proportions 
of society, and with its last gasp sighed famine and 
misfortune on the world, has cast my industrious 
client, with too many of his companions, from 
competence to penury. Alas, alas, to him it left 
worse of its satellites behind it; it left the invader 
even of his misery — the seducer of his sacred and 
unspotted innocent. Mysterious Providence ! was 
it. not enough that sorrow robed the happy home 



CREIGHTON v. TOWNSEND. 163 

in mourning — was it not enough that disappoint- 
ment preyed upon its loveliest prospects — was it 
not enough that its little inmates cried in vain for 
bread, and heard no answer but the poor father's 
sigh, and drank no sustenance but the wretched 
mother's tears ? Was this a time for passion, law- 
less, conscienceless, licentious passion, with its eye 
of lust, its heart of stone, its hand of rapine, to 
rush into the mournful sanctuary of misfortune, 
casting crime into the cup of wo, and rob the pa- 
rents of their last wealth, their child, and rob the 
child of her only charm, her innocence ! That this 
has been done I am instructed we shall prove : 
what requital it deserves, gentlemen, you must 
prove to mankind. 

The defendant's name I understand is Townsend. 
He is of an age when every generous blossom of 
the spring should breathe an infant freshness round 
his heart ; of a family which should inspire not 
only high but hereditary principles of honour ; of 
a profession whose very essence is a stainless chi- 
valry, and whose bought and bound en duty is the 
protection of the citizen. Such are the advantages 
with which he appears before you — fearful advan- 
tages, because they repel all possible suspicion; 
but you will agree with me, most damning adver- 
saries, if it shall appear that the generous ardour 
of his youth was chilled — that the noble inspira- 
tion of his birth was spurned — that the lofty 
impulse of his profession was despised — and that 
all that could grace, or animate, or ennoble, was 
used to his own discredit and his fellow-creature's 
misery. 

It was upon the first of June last, that on the 
banks of the canal, near Portobello, Lieutenant 
Townsend first met the daughter of Mr. Creighton. 



164 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 

a pretty interesting girl, scarcely sixteen years of 
age. She was accompanied by her little sister, only 
four years old, with whom she was permitted to 
take a daily walk in that retired spot, the vicinity 
of her residence. The defendant was attracted by 
her appearance — he left his party, and attempted 
to converse with her ; she repelled his advances — 
he immediately seized her infant sister by the hand 
whom he held as a kind of hostage for an intro- 
duction to his victim. A prepossessing appearance, 
a modesty of deportment apparently quite incom- 
patible with any evil design, gradually silenced her 
alarm, and she answered the common-place ques- 
tions with which, on her way home, he addressed 
her. Gentlemen, I admit it was an innocent im- 
prudence ; the rigid rules of matured morality 
should have repelled such communication; yet, 
perhaps, judging even by that strict standard, you 
will rather condemn the familiarity of the intrusion 
in a designing adult than the facility of access in a 
creature of her age and her innocence. They thus 
separated, as she naturally supposed, to meet no 
more. Not such, however, was the determination 
of her destroyer. From that hour until her ruin, 
he scarcely ever lost sight of her — he followed 
her as a shadow — he way-laid her in her walks — 
he interrupted her in her avocations — he haunted 
the street of her residence; if she refused to meet 
him, he paraded before her window at the hazard 
of exposing her first comparatively innocent im- 
prudence to her unconscious parents. How happy 
would it have been had she conquered the timidity, 
so natural to her age, and appealed at once to their 
pardon and their protection ! Gentlemen, this daily 
persecution continued for three months — for three 
successive months, by every art, by every per- 



CREIOHTON v. TOWNSEND. 165 

suasion, by every appeal to her vanity and her 
passions, did he toil for the destruction of this un- 
fortunate young creature. I leave you to guess 
how many during that interval might have yielded 
to the blandishments of manner, the fascinations 
of youth, the rarely resisted temptations of oppor- 
tunity. For three long months she did resist them. 
She would have resisted them for ever but for an 
expedient which is without a model — but for an 
exploit which I trust in God will be without an 
imitation. Oh, yes, he might have returned to 
his country, and did he but reflect, he would 
rather have rejoiced at the virtuous triumph of his 
victim, than mourned his own soul-redeeming de- 
feat ; he might have returned to his country, and 
told the cold-blooded libellers of this land that 
their speculations upon Irish chastity were preju- 
diced and proofless ; that in the wreck of all else 
we had retained our honour ; that though the na- 
tional luminary had descended for a season, the 
streaks of its loveliness still lingered on our hori- 
zon ; that the nurse of that genius which abroad 
had redeemed the name, and dignified the nature 
of man, was to be found at home in the spirit with- 
out a stain, and the purity without a suspicion. He 
might have told them truly, that this did not result, 
as they would intimate, from the absence of passion 
or the want of civilization ; that it was the com- 
bined consequence of education, of example and 
of impulse ; and that, though in all the revelry of 
enjoyment, the fair floweret of the Irish soil ex- 
haled its fragrance and expanded its charms in the 
chaste and blessed beams of a virtuous affection, 
still it shrunk with an instinctive sensitiveness 
from the gross pollution gf an unconsecrated con- 
tact ! 



166 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 

Gentlemen, the common artifices of the seducer 
failed ; the syren tones with which sensuality 
awakens appetite and lulls purity had wasted them- 
selves in air, and the intended victim, deaf to 
their fascination, moved along safe and untrans- 
formed. He soon saw, that young as she was, the 
vulgar expedients of vice were ineffectual; that 
the attractions of a glittering exterior failed ; and 
that before she could be tempted to her sensual 
damnation, his tongue must learn, if not the words 
of wisdom, at least the speciousness of affected 
purity. He pretended an affection as virtuous as 
it was violent ; he called God to witness the sincer- 
ity of his declarations ; by all the vows which should 
for ever rivet the honourable, and could not fail 
to convince even the incredulous, he promised 
her marriage ; over and over again he invoked the 
eternal denunciation if he was perfidious. To her 
acknowledged want of fortune, his constant reply 
was, that he had an independence; that all he 
wanted was beauty and virtue ; that he saw she had 
the one, that had proved she had the other. When 
she pleaded the obvious disparity of her birth, he 
answered, that he was himself only the son of an 
English farmer; that happiness was not the mono- 
poly of rank or riches ; that his parents would 
receive her as the child of their adoption ; that he 
would cherish her as the charm of his existence. 
Specious as it was, even this did not succeed ; she 
determined to await its avowal to those who had 
given her life, and who hoped to have made it im- 
maculate by the education they had bestowed and 
the example they had afforded. Some days after 
this he met her in her walks, for she could not pass 
her parental threshold without being intercepted. 
He asked where she was going—she said, a friend 



CREIGHTON v. TOWNSEND. 167 

knowing her fondness for books had promised her 
the loan of some, and she was going to receive them. 
He told her he had abundance, that they were just 
at his home, that he hoped after .what had passed 
she would feel no impropriety in accepting them. 
She was persuaded to accompany him. Arrived, 
however, at the door of his lodgings, she positively 
refused to go any farther ; all his former artifices 
were redoubled ; he called God to witness he con- 
sidered her as his wife, and her character as dear 
to him as that of one of his sisters ; he affected 
mortification at any suspicion of his purity ; he told 
her if she refused her confidence to his honourable 
affection, the little infant who accompanied her was 
an inviolable guarantee for her protection. 

Gentlemen, this wretched child did suffer her 
credulity to repose on his professions. Her theory 
taught her to respect the honour of a soldier; 
her love repelled the imputation that debased its 
object ; and her youthful innocence rendered her 
as incredulous as she was unconscious of crimina- 
lity. At first his behaviour corresponded with his 
professions ; he welcomed her to the home of which 
he hoped she would soon become the inseparable 
companion ; he painted the future joys of their 
domestic felicity, and dwelt with peculiar com- 
placency on some heraldic ornament which hung 
over his chimney-piece, and which, he said, was 
the armorial ensign of his family ! Oh ! my lord, 
how well would it have been had he but retraced 
the fountain of that document; had he recalled 
to mind the virtues it rewarded, the pure train 
of honours it associated, the line of spotless an- 
cestry it distinguished, the high ambition its be- 
quest inspired, the moral imitation it imperatively 
commanded ! But when guilt once kindles within 



168 SPEECH m THE CASE OF 

the human heart, all that is nohle in our nature 
becomes parched and arid ; the blush of modesty 
fades before its glare, the sighs of virtue fan its 
lurid flame, and every divine essence of our being 
but swells and exasperates its infernal conflagra- 
tion. 

Gentlemen, I will not disgust this audience ; I 
will not debase myself by any description of the 
scene that followed ; I will not detail the arts, the 
excitements, the promises, the pledges with which 
deliberate lust inflamed the passions, and finally 
overpowered the struggles of innocence and of 
youth. It is too much to know that tears could not 
appease — that misery could not affect — that the 
presence and the prayers of an infant could not awe 
him; and that the wretched victim, between the 
ardour of passion and the repose of love, sunk at 
length, inflamed, exhausted, and confiding, beneath 
the heartless grasp of an unsympathizing sen- 
suality. 

The appetite of the hour thus satiated, at a tem- 
poral, perhaps an eternal hazard, he dismissed the 
sisters to their, unconscious parents, not, however, 
without extorting a promise, that on the ensuing 
night Miss Creighton would desert her home for 
ever for the arms of a fond, affectionate, and faith- 
ful husband. Faithful, alas ! but only to his appe- 
tites, he did seduce her from that " sacred home," 
to deeper guilt, to more deliberate cruelty. 

After a suspense comparatively happy, her pa- 
rents became acquainted with her irrevocable ruin. 
The miserable mother, supported by the mere 
strength of desperation, rushed half phrenzied to 
the castle, where Mr. Townsend was on duty. — 
" Give me back my child !" was all she could arti- 
culate. The parental ruin struck the spoiler 



CREIGHTON v. TOWNSEND. 169 

almost speechless. The few dreadful words, " / 
have your child" withered her heart up with the 
horrid joy that death denied its mercy, that her 
daughter lived, but lived, alas, to infamy. She could 
neither speak nor hear; she sunk down convulsed 
and powerless. As soon as she could recover to any 
thing of effort, naturally did she turn to the resi- 
dence of Mr. Townsend ; his orders had anticipa- 
ted her — the sentinel refused her entrance. She told 
her sad narration, she implored his pity ; with the 
eloquence of grief she asked him, had he home, or 
wife, or children. " Oh, Holy Nature ! thou didst not 
plead in vain !" even the rude soldier's heart re- 
lented. He admitted her by stealth, and she once 
more held within her arms the darling hope of many 
an anxious hour ; duped, desolate, degraded it was 
true — but still — but still "her child." Gentlemen, 
if the parental heart cannot suppose what followed 
how little adequate am I to paint it. Home this 
wretched creature could not return ; a seducer's 
mandate and a father's anger equally forbade it. 
But she gave whatever consolation she was capa- 
ble ; she told the fatal tale of her undoing — the 
hopes, the promises, the studied specious arts that 
had seduced her; and with a desperate credulity 
still watched the light that, glimmering in the dis- 
tant vista of her love, mocked her with hope, and 
was to leave her to the tempest. To all the pro- 
phecies of maternal anguish, she would still reply, 
" Oh, no — in the eye of Heaven he is my hus- 
band ; he took me from my home, my happiness 
and you, but still he pledged to me a soldier's 
honour — but he assured me with a christian's con- 
science ; for three long months I heard his vows 
of love ; he is honourable and will not deceive ; he 
is human and cannot desert me." Hear, gentle- 
22 



170 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 

men, hear, I beseech you, how this innocent con- 
fidence was returned. When her indignant father 
had resorted to Lord Forbes, the commander of the 
forces, and to the noble and learned head of this 
court, both of whom received him with a sympathy 
that did them honour, Mr. Townsend sent a brother 
officer to inform her she must quit his residence 
and take lodgings. In vain she remonstrated, in vain 
she reminded him of her former purity, and of the 
promises that betrayed it. She was literally turned 
out at nightfall to find whatever refuge the God of 
the shelterless might provide for her. Deserted and 
disowned, how naturally did she turn to the once 
happy home, whose inmates she had disgraced, and 
whose protection she had forfeited ! how naturally 
did she think the once familiar and once welcome 
avenues looked frowning as she passed ! how nat- 
urally did she linger like a reposeless spectre round 
the memorials of her living happiness ! Her heart 
failed her : where a parent's smile had ever cheer- 
ed her, she could not face the glance of shame, or 
sorrow, or disdain. She returned to seek her se- 
ducer's pity even till the morning. Good God! 
how can I disclose it ! — the very guard had orders 
to refuse her access ; even by the rabble soldiery 
she was cast into the street, amid the night's dark 
horrors, the victim of her own credulity, the out- 
cast of another's crime, to seal her guilty woes 
with suicide, or lead a living death amid the tainted 
sepulchres of a promiscuous prostitution ! Far, far 
am I from sorry that it was so. Horrible beyond 
thought as is this aggravation, I only hear in it the 
voice of the Deity in thunder upon the crime. Yes, 
yes ; it is the present God arming the vicious agent 
against the vice, and terrifying from its conception 
by the turpitude to which it may lead. But what 



CREIGHTON v. TOWNSEND. 171 

aggravation does seduction need! Vice is its 
essence, lust its end, hypocrisy its instrument, and 
innocence its victim. Must I detail its mise- 
ries ? Who depopulates the home of virtue, making 
the child an orphan, and the parent childless ? 
Who wrests its crutch from the tottering helpless- 
ness of piteous age ? Who wrings its happiness 
from the heart of youth ? Who shocks the vision 
of the public eye ? Who infects your very tho- 
roughfares with disease, disgust, obscenity, and pro- 
faneness ? Who pollutes the harmless scenes where 
modesty resorts for mirth, and toil for recreation, 
with sights that stain the pure and shock the sen- 
* sitive ? Are these the phrases of an interested 
advocacy ? Is there one amongst you but has wit- 
nessed their verification ? Is there one amongst 
you so fortunate, or so secluded, as not to have 
wept over the wreck of health, and youth, and 
loveliness, and talent, the fatal trophies of the 
seducer's triumph — some form, perhaps, where 
every grace was squandered, and every beauty 
paused to waste its bloom, and every beam of mind 
and tone of melody poured their profusion on the 
public wonder ; all that a parent's prayer could 
ask, or a lover's adoration fancy ; in whom even 
pollution looked so lovely, that virtue would have 
made her more than human ? Is there an epithet 
too vile for such a spoiler? Is there a punish- 
ment too severe for such depravity ? I know not 
upon what complaisance this English seducer may 
calculate from a jury of this country ; I know noU 
indeed, whether he may not think he does your 
wives and daughters some honour by their contami- 
nation* But I know well what reception he would 
experience from a jury of his own country. I 
know that in such general execration do they view 



172 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 

this crime, they think no possible plea a palliation ; 
no, not the mature age of the seduced ; not her 
previously protracted absence from her parents; 
not a levity approaching almost to absolute guilt ; 
not an indiscretion in the mother, that bore every 
colour of connivance : and in this opinion they 
have been supported by all the venerable authori- 
ties with whom age, integrity, and learning have 
adorned the judgment-seat. 

Gentlemen, 1 come armed with these authorities. 
In the case of Tullidge against Wade, my lord, it 
appeared the person seduced was thirty years of 
age, and long before absent from her home ; yet, 
on a motion to set aside the verdict for excessive 
damages, what was the language of Chief Justice 
Wilmot ? " I regret," said he, " that they were not 
greater ; though the plaintiff's loss did not amount 
to twenty shillings, the jury were right in giving 
ample damages, because such actions should be 
encouraged for example's sake." Justice Clive 
wished they had given twice the sum, and in this 
opinion the whole bench concurred. There was 
a case where the girl was of mature age, and living 
apart from her parents : here, the victim is almost 
a child, and was never for a moment separated 
from her home. Again, in the case of " Bennet 
against Alcot," on a similar motion, grounded on 
the apparently overwhelming fact, that the mother 
of the girl had actually sent the defendant into her 
daughter's bed-chamber, where the criminality oc- 
curred, Justice Buller declared, " he thought the 
parent's indiscretion no excuse for the defendant's 
culpability ;" and the verdict of 200/. damages was 
confirmed. There was a case of literal conni- 
vance : here, will they have the hardihood to hint 
even suspicion ? You all must remember, gen- 



CREIGHTON v. TOWNSEND. 173 

tlemen, the case of our own countryman, Captain 
Gore, against whom, only the other day, an English 
jury gave a verdict of 1,500/. damages, though it 
was proved that the person alleged to have been 
seduced was herself the seducer, going even so far 
as to throw gravel up at the windows of the de- 
fendant ; yet Lord Ellenborough refused to disturb 
the verdict. Thus you may see I rest not on my 
own proofless and unsupported dictum. I rely 
upon grave decisions and venerable authorities — 
not only on the indignant denunciation of the mo- 
ment, but on the deliberate concurrence of the en- 
lightened and the dispassionate. I see my learned 
opponent smile. I tell him I would not care if the 
books were an absolute blank upon the subject. 
I would then make the human heart my authority ; 
I would appeal to the bosom of e\evy man who 
hears me, whether such a crime should grow un- 
punished into a precedent ; whether innocence 
should be made the subject of a brutal speculation ; 
whether the sacred seal of filial obedience, upon 
which the Almighty Parent has affixed his eternal 
fiat, should be violated by a blasphemous and sel- 
fish libertinism ! 

Gentlemen, if the cases I have quoted, palliated 
as they were, have been humanely marked by am- 
ple damages, what should you give here where 
there is nothing to excuse — where there is every 
thing to aggravate! The seduction was delibe- 
rate, it was three months in progress, its victim 
was almost a child, it was committed under the 
most alluring promises, it was followed by a deed 
of the most dreadful cruelty ; but, above alL it 
was the act of a man commissioned by his own 
country, and paid by this, for the enforcement of 
the laws and the preservation of society. No man 






174 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 

more respects than I do the well-earned reputation 
of the British army ; 

" It is a school 
Where every principle tending to honour 
Is taught — if followed" 

. 

But in the name of that distinguished army, I here 
solemnly appeal against an act, which would blight 
its greenest laurels, and lay its troptiies prostrate 
in the dust. Let them war, but be it not on do- 
mestic happiness ; let them invade, but be their 
country's earths inviolable ; let them achieve a 
triumph wherever their banners fly, but be it not 
over morals, innocence, and virtue. I know not 
by what palliation the defendant means to mitigate 
this enormity ; — will he plead her youth ? it should 
have been her protection ; — will he plead her levi- 
ty ? I deny the fact ; but even were it true, what 
is it to him? what right has any man to speculate 
on the temperature of your wives and your daugh- 
ters, that he may defile your bed, or desolate your 
habitation? Will he plead poverty? I never knew 
a seducer or an adulterer that did not. He should 
have considered that before. But is poverty an 
excuse for crime ? Our law says, he who has 
not a purse to pay for it, must suffer for it in 
his person. It is a most wise declaration ; and for 
my part, I never hear such a person plead poverty, 
that my first emotion is not a thanksgiving, that 
Providence has denied, at least, the instrumentality 
of wealth to the accomplishment of his purposes. 
Gentlemen, I see you agree with me. I wave the 
topic ; and I again tell you, that if what I know 
will be his chief defence were true, it should avail 
him nothing. He had no right to speculate on 
this wretched creature's levity to ruin her, and 



CREIGHTON v. TOWNSEND. 175 

still less to ruin her family. Remember, however, 
gentlemen, that even had this wretched child 
been indiscreet, it is not in her name we ask for 
reparation ; no, it is in the name of the parents 
her seducer has heart-broken ; it is in the name of 
the poor helpless family he has desolated ; it is in 
the name of that misery, whose sanctuary he has 
violated ; it is in the name of law, virtue and mo- 
rality ; it is in the name of that country whose fair 
fame foreign envy will make responsible for this 
crime ; it is in the name of nature's dearest, ten- 
derest sympathies ; it is in the name of all that gives 
your toil an object, and your ease a charm, and your 
age a hope — 1 ask from you the value of the poor 
man's child. 






THE CASE OF BLAKE v. WILKINS 



DELIVERED TN THE COUNTY COURT-HOUSE. 



GALWAY. 



May it please your Lordship, 

The plaintiff's counsel tell me, gentlemen, 
most unexpectedly, that they have closed his 
case, and it becomes my duty to state to you that 
of the defendant. The nature of this action 
you have already heard. It is one which, in 
my mind, ought to be very seldom brought, 
and very sparingly encouraged. It is founded 
on circumstances of the most extreme delicacy, 
and it is intended to visit with penal consequences 
the non-observance of an engagement, which is 
of the most paramount importance to society, and 
which of all others, perhaps, ought to be the most 
unbiassed, — an engagement which, if it be volun- 
tary, judicious, and disinterested, generally pro- 
duces the happiest effects; but which, if it be 
either unsuitable or compulsory, engenders not 
only individual misery, but consequences univer- 
sally pernicious. There are few contracts between 
human beings which should be more deliberate 



SPEECH. 177 

than that of marriage. I admit it should be very 
cautiously promised, but, even when promised, I 
am far from conceding that it should invariably 
be performed; a thousand circumstances may form 
an impediment, change of fortune may render it 
imprudent, change of affection may make it 
culpable. The very party to whom the law gives 
the privilege of complaint has perhaps the most rea- 
son to be grateful, — grateful that its happiness has 
not been surrendered to caprice ; grateful that reli- 
gion has not constrained an unwilling acquiescence, 
or made an unavoidable desertion doubly criminal; 
grateful that an offspring has not been sacrificed to 
the indelicate and ungenerous enforcement; grate- 
ful that an innocent secret disinclination did not 
too late evince itself in an irresistible and irreme- 
diable disgust. You will agree with me, however, 
that if there exists any excuse for such an action, 
it is on the side of the female, because every fe- 
male object being more exclusively domestic, such 
a disappointment is more severe in its visitation ; 
because the very circumstance concentrating their 
feelings renders them naturally more sensitive of a 
wound ; because their best treasure, their repu- 
tation, may have suffered from the intercourse ; 
because their chances of reparation are iess, and 
their habitual seclusion makes them feel it more ; 
because there is something in the desertion of 
their helplessness which almost imm^rges the ille- 
gality in the unmanliness of the abandonment. — 
However, if a man seeks to enforce this engage- 
ment, every one feels some indelicacy attached to 
the requisition. I do not inquire into the compa- 
rative justness of the reasoning, but does not every 
one feel that there appears some meanness in forcing 
a female into an alliance ? Is it not almost saying, 
23 



170 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 

" 1 will expose to public shame the credulity on 
which I practised, or you must pay to me in mo- 
neys numbered, the profits of that heartless spe- 
culation ; I have gambled with your affections, I 
have secured your bond, I will extort the penalty 
either from your purse or your reputation!" I 
put a case to you where the circumstances are 
reciprocal, where age, fortune, situation, are the 
same, where there is no disparity of years to make 
the supposition ludicrous, where there is no dispari- 
ty of fortune to render it suspicious. Let us see 
whether the present action can be so palliated, or 
whether it does not exhibit a picture of fraud and 
avarice, and meanness and hypocrisy, so laugha- 
ble, that it is almost impossible to criticise it, and 
yet so debasing, that human pride almost forbids 
its ridicule. 

It has been left to me to defend my unfortunate 
t>!d client from the double battery of Love and of 
Law, which at the age of sixty-five has so unex- 
pectedly opened on her. Oh, gentlemen, how 
vahi-glorious is the boast of beauty ! How misap- 
prehended have been the charms of youth, if years 
and wt m kles can thus despoil their conquests, and 
d ep ] a te the navy of its prowess, and beguile 
the b f * ts e ^°q uence • How mistaken were all 
V par o r^oets from Anacreon downwards, who 
the amatory k ^ QQm of the roge and the thrffl of 

preferred the w o the saffron hide and dulcet tre . 
the nightingale, , ^^ Qur own sweet bard faas 
ble of sixty-five ! . , . 

had the folly to deck re ' mal 

. , * . ' „ c an amourous youth 
« He once had heard tell o. dmothei , s be J d 
Who was caught in his gran u rish tooth 
But owns he had ne'er such a ^ „ 
As to wish to be there in his ste> 



BLAKE v. WILKINS. 179 

Royal wisdom has said, that we live in a " New 
Era." The reign of old women has commenced, 
and if Johanna Sou£hcoute converts England to her 
creed, why should not Ireland, less pious perhaps, 
but at least equally passionate, kneel before the 
shrine of the irresistible Widow Wilkins. It ap- 
pears, gentlemen, to have been her happy fate 
to have subdued particularly the death-dealing 
professions. Indeed, in the love-episodes of the 
heathen mythology, Mars and Venus were con- 
sidered as inseparable. I know not whether any 
of you have ever seen a very beautiful print repre- 
senting the fatal glory of Quebec, and the last 
moments of its immortal conqueror — if so, you must 
have observed the figure of the staff physician, in 
whose arms the hero is expiring — that identical per- 
sonage, my lord, was the happy swain, who, forty 
or fifty yettrs ago, received the reward of his valour 
and his skill in the virgin hand of my venerable client ! 
The Doctor lived something more than a century, 
during a great part of which Mrs. Wilkins was 
his companion — alas, gentlemen, long as he lived, 
he lived not long enough to behold her beauty — 

" That beauty, like the Aloe flower, 
But bloom'd and blossom'd at fourscore." 

He was, however, so far fascinated as to bequeath 
to her the legacies of his patients, when he found 
he was predoomed to follow them. To this cir- 
cumstance, very far be it from me to hint, that 
Mrs. W. is indebted for any of her attractions. — 
Rich, however, she undoubtedly was, and rich she 
would still as undoubtedly have continued, had it 
not been for her intercourse with the family of the 
plaintifE I do not impute it as a crime to them that 



180 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 

they happened to be necessitous, but I do impute it 
as both criminal and ungrateful, that after having 
lived on the generosity of their friend, after having 
literally exhausted her most prodigal liberality, 
they should drag her infirmities before the public 
gaze, vainly supposing that they could hide their 
own contemptible avarice in the more prominent 
exposure of her melancholy dotage. The father 
of the plaintiff, it cannot be unknown to you, was 
for many years in the most indigent situation. — 
Perhaps it is not a matter of concealment either, 
that he found in Mrs. Wilkins a generous bene- 
factress. She assisted and supported him, until at 
last his increasing necessities reduced him to take 
refuge in an act of insolvency. During their inti- 
macy, frequent allusion was made to a son w r hom 
Mrs. Wilkins had never seen since he was a child, 
and who had risen to a lieutenancy in *he navy, 
under the patronage of their relative, Sir Benjamin 
Bloomfield. In a parent's panegyric, the gallant 
lieutenant was of course all that even hope could 
picture. Young, gay, heroic, and disinterested, 
the pride of the navy, the prop of the country, 
independent as the gale that wafted, and bounteous 
as the wave that bore him. I am afraid that it is 
rather an anti-climax to tell you after this, that he 
is the present plaintiff! The eloquence of Mrs. 
Blake was not exclusively confined to her enco- 
miums on the lieutenant. She diverged at times 
into an episode on the matrimonial felicities, painted 
the joy of passion and delights of love, and ob- 
scurely hinted that Hymen, with his torch, had an 
exact personification in her son Peter, bearing a 
match-light in his majesty's ship the Hydra ! — 
While these contrivances were practising on 
Mrs. Wilkins, a bye-plot was got up on board the 



BLAKE v. WILKINS. 131 

Hydra, and Mr. Blake returned to his mourning 
country, influenced, as he says, by his partiality for 
the defendant, but in reality compelled by ill 
health and disappointments, added, perhaps, to 
his mother's very absurd and avaricious specula- 
tions. What a loss the navy had of him, and what 
a loss he had of the navy ! Alas, gentlemen, he 
could not resist his affection for a female he never 
saw. Almighty love eclipsed the glories of ambi- 
tion — Trafalgar and St. Vincent flitted from his 
memory — he gave up all for woman, as Mark An- 
tony did before him, and, like the Cupid in Hudi- 
bras, he 

" took his stand 



Upon a widow's jointure land— 
His tender sigh and trickling tear 
Long'd for five hundred pounds a year ; 
And languishing desires were fond 
Of statutes, mortgage, bill and bond !" 

— Oh, gentlemen, only imagine him on the lakes 
of North America ! Alike to him the varieties of 
season or the vicissitudes of warfare. One sove- 
reign image monopolizes his sensibilities. Does the 
storm rage ? the Widow Wilkins outsighs the whirl- 
wind. Is the Ocean calm ? its mirror shows him 
the lovely Widow Wilkins. Is the battle won ? he 
thins his laurel that the Widow Wilkins may inter- 
weave her mirtles. Does the broadside thunder ? 
he invokes the Widow Wilkins ! 

"A sweet little Cherub she sits up aloft 
To keep watch for the life of poor Peter!" 

— Alas, how much he is to be pitied ! How amply 
he should be recompensed ! Who but must mourn 
his sublime, disinterested, sweet-souled patriotism ! 



182 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 

Who but must sympathize with his pure, ardent, 
generous affection ! — affection too confiding to re- 
quire an interview ! — affection too warm to wait 
even for an introduction ! Indeed, his Amanda 
herself seemed to think his love was most desirable 
at a distance, for at the very first visit after his re- 
turn he was refused admittance. His captivating 
charmer was then sick and nurse-tended at her 
brothers house, after a winter's confinement, re- 
flecting, most likely, rather on her funeral than her 
wedding. Mrs. Blake's avarice instantly took the 
alarm, and she wrote the letter, which I shall now 
proceed to read to you. 

[Mr. Vandeleur. — My lord, unwilling as I am 
to interrupt a statement which seems to create so 
universal a sensation, still I hope your lordship 
will restrain Mr. Phillips from reading a letter 
which cannot hereafter be read in evidence. 

Mr. O'Connell rose for the purpose of sup- 
porting the propriety of the course pursued by the 
defendant's counsel, when] 

Mr. Phillips resumed — My lord, although it 
is utterly impossible for the learned gentlemen to 
say, in what manner hereafter this letter might be 
made evidence, still my case is too strong to require 
any cavilling upon such trifles. I am content to 
save the public time and waive the perusal of the 
letter. However, they have now given its sup- 
pression an importance which perhaps its produc- 
tion could not have procured for it. You see, 
gentlemen, what a case they have when they insist 
on the withholding of the documents which origi- 
nated with themselves. I accede to their very po- 
litic interference. I grant them, since they entreat 
it, the mercy of my silence. Certain it is, however, 
that a letter was received from Mrs. Blake; and 



BLAKE v. WILKINS, 133 

that almost immediately after its receipt, Miss 
Blake intruded herself at Brownville, where 
Mrs. Wilkins was — remained two days — lamented 
bitterly her not having appeared to the lieute- 
nant when he called to visit her — said that her 
poor mother had set her heart on an alliance- — 
that she was sure, dear ivoman, a disappointment 
would be the death of her ; in short, that there was 
no alternative but the tomb or the altar ! To all 
this Mrs. Wilkins only replied, how totally ignorant 
the parties most interested were of each other, and 
that were she even inclined to connect herself with 
a stranger (poor old fool !) the debts in which her 
generosity to the family had already involved her, 
formed, at least for the present, an insurmountable 
impediment. This was not sufficient. In less than 
a week, the indefatigable Miss Blake returned to 
the charge, actually armed with an old family-bond 
to pay off the incumbrancess, and a renewed repre- 
sentation of the mothers suspense and the brother's 
desperation. You will not fail to observe, gentlemen, 
that while the female conspirators were thus at 
work, the lover himself had never even seen the object 
of his idolatry. Like the maniac in the farce, he fell 
in love with the picture of his grandmother. Like a 
prince of the blood, he was willing to woo and to 
be wedded by proxy. For the gratification of his 
avarice, he was contented to embrace age, disease, 
infirmity, and widowhood — to bind his youthful pas- 
sions to the carcase for which the grave was open- 
ing — to feed by anticipation on the uncold corpse, 
and cheat the worm of its reversionary corruption. 
Educated in a profession proverbially generous, he 
offered to barter every joy for money ! Born in a 
country ardent to a fault, he advertised his happi- 
ness to the highest bidder ! and he now solicits an 



184 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 

honourable jury to become the panders to this 
heartlesss cupidity ! Thus beset, harassed, con- 
spired against, their miserable victim entered into 
the contract you have heard — a contract conceiv- 
ed in meanness, extorted by fraud, and sought to 
be enforced by the most profligate conspiracy. — 
Trace it through every stage of its progress, in its 
origin, its means, its effects — from the parent con- 
triving it through the sacrifice of her son, and for- 
warding it through the indelicate instrumentality of 
her daughter, down to the son himself unblushingly 
acceding to the atrocious combination by which age 
was to be betrayed and youth degraded, and the 
odious union of decrepit lust and precocious ava- 
rice blasphemously consecrated by the solemni- 
ties of religion ! Is this the example which as pa- 
rents you would sanction ? Is this the principle 
you would adopt yourselves ? Have you never wit- 
nessed the misery of an unmatched marriage? Have 
you never worshipped the bliss by which it has been 
hallo wed, when its torch, kindled at affection's altar, 
gives the noon of life its warmth and its lustre, and 
blesses its evening with a more chastened, but not 
less lovely illumination ? Are you prepared to say, 
that this rite of Heaven, revered by each country, 
cherished by each sex, the solemnity of every 
church and the Sacrament of one, shall be pro- 
faned into the ceremonial of an obscene and soul- 
degrading avarice ! 

No sooner was this contract, the device of their 
covetousness and the evidence of their shame, 
swindled from the wretched object of this conspi- 
racy, than its motive became apparent ; they avow- 
ed themselves the keepers of their melancholy vic- 
tim ; they watched her movements ; they dictated 
her actions ; they forbade all intercourse with her 



BLAKE v. WILKINS. 185 

own brother ; they duped her into accepting bills, 
and let her be arrested for the amount. They ex- 
ercised the most cruel and capricious tyranny upon 
her, now menacing her with the publication of her 
follies, and now with the still more horrible enforce- 
ment of a contract that thus betrayed its anticipated 
inflictions ! Can you imagine a more disgusting ex- 
hibition of how weak and how worthless human 
nature may be, than this scene exposes ? On the 
one hand, a combination of sex and age, disregard- 
ing the most sacred obligations, and trampling on 
the most tender ties, from a mean greediness of 
lucre, that neither honour or gratitude or nature 
could appease, u Lucri bonus est odor exrequa- 
libet" On rHe other hand, the poor shrivelled re- 
lic, of what once was health, and youth, and ani- 
mation, sought to be embraced in its infection, and 
caressed in its infirmity — crawled over and corrupt- 
ed by the human reptiles, before death had shovel- 
led it to the less odious and more natural vermin 
of the grave ! What an object for the speculations 
of avarice ! What an angel for the idolatry of youth! 
Gentlemen, when this miserable dupe to her own 
doting vanity and the vice of others, saw how she 
was treated — when she found herself controlled by 
the mother, beset by the daughter, beggared by the 
father, and held by the son as a kind of windfall, 
that, too rotten to keep its hold, had fallen at his 
feet to be squeezed and trampled ; when she saw 
the intercourse of her relatives prohibited, the most 
trifling remembrances of her ancient friendship de- 
nied, the very exercise of her habitual charity de- 
nounced ; when she saw that all she was worth was 
to be surrendered to a family confiscation, and that 
she was herself to be gibbetted in the chains of wed- 
lock, an example to every superanuated dotard, 
24 



1£6 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 

upon whose plunder the ravens of the world might 
calculate, she came to the wisest determination of 
her life, and decided that her fortune should remain 
at her own disposal. Acting upon this decision, 
she wrote to Mr. Blake, complaining of the cruelty 
with which she had been treated, desiring the res- 
toration of the contract of which she had been 
duped, and declaring, as the only means of securing 
respect, her final determination as to the control 
over her property. To this letter, addressed to the 
son, a verbal answer (mark the conspiracy) was re- 
turned from the mother, withholding all consent, 
unless the property was settled on her family, but 
withholding the contract at the same time. The 
wretched old woman could not sustatfPthis conflict. 
She was taken seriously ill, confined for many 
months in her brother's house, from whom she was 
so cruelly sought to be separated, until the debts 
in which she was involved and a recommended 
change of scene transferred her to Dublin. There 
she was received with the utmost kindness by her 
relative, Mr. Mac Namara, to whom she confided 
the delicacy and distress of her situation. That 
gentleman, acting at once as her agent and her 
iricnd, instantly repaired to Galway, where he had 
an interview with Mr. Blake. This was long be- 
fore the commencement of any action. A conver- 
sation took place between them on the subject, 
which must, in my mind, set the present action at 
rest altogether ; because it must show that the non- 
performance of the contract originated entirely with 
the plaintiff himself. Mr. Mac Namara inquired, 
whether it was not true, that Mr. Blake's own fa- 
mily declined any connexion, unless Mrs. Wilkins 
consented to settle on them the entire of her pro- 
perty ? Mr. Blake replied it was. Mr. Mac Na- 



BLAKE v. WILKINS. 187 

mara rejoined, that her contract did not bind her 
to any such extent. " No," replied Mr. Blake, " I 
know it does not ; however, tell Mrs. Wilkins that 
I understand she has about 580/. a year, and I will 
be content to settle the odd 80/. on her by way of pocket 
money. Here, of course the conversation ended, 
which Mr. Mac Namara detailed, as he was desired, 
to Mrs. Wilkins, who rejected it with the disdain, 
which, I hope, it will excite in every honourable 
mind. A topic, however, arose during the inter- 
view, which unfolds the motives and illustrates the 
mind of Mr. Blake more than any observation which 
I can make on it. As one of the inducements to the 
projected marriage, he actually proposed the pros- 
pect of a 50/. annuity as an officer's widow's pen- 
sion, to which she would be entitled in the event of 
his decease ! I will not stop to remark on the deli- 
cacy of this inducement — I will not dwell on the 
ridicule of the anticipation — I will not advert to 
the glaring dotage on which he speculated, when 
he could seriously hold out to a woman of her years 
the prospect of such an improbable survivorship. 
But I do ask you, of what materials must the man 
be composed who could thus debase the national 
liberality ! What ! was the recompense of that 
lofty heroism which has almost appropriated to the 
British navy the monopoly of maritime renown — 
was that grateful offering which a weeping country 
pours into the lap of its patriot's widow, and into 
the cradle of its warrior's orphan — was that gene- 
rous consolation with which a nation's gratitude 
cheers the last moments of her dying hero, by the 
portraiture of his children sustained and ennobled 
by the legacy of his achievements, to be thus delib- 
erately perverted into the bribe of a base, reluc- 
tant, unnatural prostitution ! Oh ! I know of nothing 



188 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 

to parallel the self-abasement of such a deed, ex- 
cept the audacity that requires an honourable jury 
to abet it. The following letter from Mr. Anthony 
Martin, Mr. Blake's attorney, unfolded the future 
plans of this unfeeling conspiracy. Perhaps the 
gentlemen would wish also to cushion this docu- 
ment ? They do not. Then I shall read it. The 
letter is addressed to Mrs. Wilkins. 

« Galway, Jan. 9, 1817. 
Madam, 

" I have been applied to professionally by Lieu- 
tenant Peter Blake to take proceedings against you 
on rather an unpleasant occasion ; but, from every 
letter of your's, and other documents, together with 
the material and irreparable loss Mr. Blake has sus- 
tained in his professional prospects, by means of 
your proposals to him, makes it indispensably neces- 
sary for him to get remuneration from you. Under 
these circumstances, I am obliged to say, that I 
have his directions to take immediate proceedings 
against you, unless he is in some measure compen- 
sated for your breach of contract and promise to 
him. I should feel happy that you would save me 
the necessity of acting professionally by settling the 
business [You see, gentlemen, money, money, mo- 
ney, runs through the whole amour], and not 
suffer it to come to a public investigation, particu- 
larly, as I conceive from the legal advice Mr. Blake 
has got, together with all I have seen, it will ulti- 
mately terminate most honourably to his advantage, 
and to jour pecuniary loss. 

" I have the honour to remain, 
" Madam, 
K Your very humble servant, 

" Anthony Martin.' 1 



BLAKE v. WILKINS. 189 

Indeed, I think Mr. Anthony Martin is mistaken. 
Indeed, I think no twelve men upon their oaths 
will say (even admitting the truth of all he asserts) 
that it was honourable for a British officer to aban- 
don the navy on such a speculation — to desert so 
noble a profession — to forfeit the ambition it 
ought to have associated — the rank to which it 
leads — the glory it may confer, for the purpose of 
extorting from an old woman he never saw the 
purchase-money of his degradation ! But I rescue 
the plaintiff from this disgraceful imputation. I 
cannot believe that a member of a profession not 
less remarkable for the valour than the generosity 
of its spirit — a profession as proverbial for its pro- 
fusion in the harbour as for the prodigality of its 
life-blood on the wave — a profession ever willing 
to fling money to the winds, and only anxious that 
that they should waft through the world its immor- 
tal banner crimsoned with the record of a thousand vic- 
tories ! No, no, gentlemen; notwithstanding the 
great authority of Mr. Anthony Martin, I cannot 
readily believe that any man could be found to 
make the high honour of this noble service a base, 
mercenary, sullied pander to the prostitution of his 
youth ! The fact is, that increasing ill health, and 
the improbability of promotion, combined to induce 
his retirement o;i half pay. You will find this con- 
firmed by the date of his resignation, which was 
immediately after the battle of Waterloo, which 
settled (no matter how) the destinies of Europe. 
His constitution was declining, his advancement 
was annihilated, and, as a forlorn hope, he bom- 
barded the Widow Wilkins ! 

" War thoughts had left their places vacant : 
In their room came, thronging, soft and amorous desires: 
All telling him how fair — young hero was." 



190 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 

He first, gentlemen, attacked her fortune with 
herself, through the artillery of the church, and 
having failed in that, he now attacks her fortune 
without herself, through the assistance of the law. — 
However, if I am instructed rightly, he has nobody 
but himself to blame for his disappointment. Ob- 
serve, I do not vouch for the authenticity of this 
fact ; but I do certainly assure you, that Mrs. Wil- 
kins was persuaded t)f it. You know the pro- 
verbial frailty of our nature. The gallant Lieute- 
nant was not free from it ! Perhaps you imagine 
that some younger, or, according to his taste, some 
older fair one, weaned him from the widow. In- 
deed they did not. He had no heart to lose, and 
yet (can you solve the paradox ?) his infirmity was 
love. As the poet says — 

" Love — still — love." 

No, it was not to Venus, it was to Bacchus, he 
sacrificed. With an eastern idolatry he com- 
menced at day-light, and so persevering was his 
piety till the shades of night, that when he was 
not on his knees, he could scarcely be said to be on his 
legs ! When I came to this passage, I could not 
avoid involuntarily exclaiming, Oh, Peter, Peter, 
whether it be in liquor or in love — 

" None but thyself can be thy parallel I" 

I see by your smiling, gentlemen, that you cor- 
rect my error. I perceive your classio memories 
recurring to, perhaps, the only prototype to be 
found in history. I beg his pardon. I should not 
have overlooked 

the immortal Captain Wattle, 



Who was all for love and — a little for the bottle." 



BLAKE v. WILKINS. 191 

Ardent as our fair ones have been announced to 
be, they do not prefer a flame that is so exclusively 
spiritual Widow Wilkins, no doubt, did not 
choose to be singular. In the words of the bard, 
and, my lord, I perceive you excuse my dwelling 
so much on the authority of the muses, because 
really on this occasion the minstrel seems to have 
combined the powers of poetry with the spirit of 
prophecy — in the very words of the bard, 

" He asked her, would she marry him — Widow Wilkins an- 

swer'd, no — 
Then said he, I'll to the Ocean rock, I'm ready for the 

slaughter, 
Oh ! — I'll shoot at my sad image, as its sighing in the 

water — % 
Only think of Widow Wilkins, saying — Go — Peter — go !"" 

But, gentlemen, let us try to be serious, and 
seriously give me leave to ask you, on what grounds 
does he solicit your verdict? Is it for the loss of 
his profession ? Does he deserve compensation if 
he abandoned it for such a purpose — if he de- 
serted at once his duty and his country to trepan 
the weakness of a wealthy dotard ? But did he 
(base as the pretence is), did he do so ? Is there 
nothing to cast any suspicion on the pretext? 
nothing in the aspect of public affairs ? in the uni- 
versal peace ? in the uncertainty of being put in 
commission ? in the downright impossibility of ad- 
vancement ? Nothing to make you suspect that 
he imputes as a contrivance, what was the manifest 
result of an accidental contingency ? Does he 
claim on the ground of sacrificed affection ? Oh, 
gentlemen, only fancy what he has lost — if it were 
but the blessed raptures of the bridal night ! Do not 
suppose I am going ? to describe it ; I shall leave it 



192 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 

to the learned counsel he has selected to compose 
his epithalamium. I shall not exhibit the venerable 
trembler — at once a relic and a relict ; with a 
grace for every year and a Cupid in every wrinkle 
— affecting to shrink from the flame of his impa- 
tience, and fanning it with the ambrosial sigh of 
sixty -five ! ! I cannot paint the fierce meridian 
transports of the honeymoon, gradually melting 
into a more chastened and permanent affection — 
every nine months adding a link to the chain of 
their delicate embraces, until, too soon, death's 
broadside lays the Lieutenant low, consoling, how- 
ever, his patriarchal charmer, (old enough at the 
time to be the last wife of Methuselah) with a fifty 
pound annuity, being the balance of his glory against 
his majesty } s ship the Hidra ! ! 

Give me leave to ask you, is this one of the 
cases, to meet which, this very rare and delicate 
action was intended ? Is this a case where a reci- 
procity of circumstances, of affection, or of years, 
throw even a shade of rationality over the con- 
tract ? Do not imagine I mean to insinuate, that 
under no circumstances ought such a proceeding 
to be adopted. Do not imagine, though I say 
this action belongs more naturally to a female, its 
adoption can never be justified by one of the other 
sex. Without any great violence to my imagina- 
tion, I can suppose a man in the very spring of 
life, when his sensibilities are most acute, and his 
passions most ardent, attaching himself to some 
object, young, lovely, talented, and accomplished, 
concentrating, as he thought, every charm of per- 
sonal perfection, and in whom those charms were 
only heightened by the modesty that veiled them : 
perhaps his preference was encouraged ; his affec- 
tion returned ; his very sigh echoed until he was 



BLAKE v. WILKINS. 193 

conscious of his existence but by the soul-creating 
sympathy — until the world seemed but the resi- 
dence of his love, and that love the principle that 
gave it animation — until, before the smile of her af- 
fection, the whole spectral train of sorrow vanished, 
and this world of wo, with all its cares and miseries 
and crimes, brightened as by enchantment into 
anticipated paradise ! ! It might happen that this 
divine affection might be crushed, and that hea- 
venly vision wither into air at the hell-engendered 
Eestilence of parental avarice, leaving youth and 
ealth, and worth and happiness, a sacrifice to its 
unnatural and mercenary caprices. Far am I from 
saying, that such a case would not call for expia- 
tion, particularly where the punishment fell upon 
the very vice in which the ruin had originated, 
Yet even there perhaps an honourable mind would 
rather despise the mean, unmerited desertion. 
Oh, I am sure a sensitive mind would rather droop 
uncomplaining into the grave, than solicit the 
mockery of a worldly compensation! But in the 
case before you, is there the slightest ground for 
supposing any affection ? Do you believe, if any 
accident bereft the defendant of her fortune, that 
her persecutor would be likely to retain his con- 
stancy ? Do you believe that the marriage thus 
sought to be enforced, was one likely to promote 
morality and virtue ? Do you believe that those 
delicious fruits by which the struggles of social 
life are sweetened, and the anxieties of parental 
care alleviated, were ever once anticipated ? Do 
you think that such an union could exhibit those 
reciprocities of love and endearments by which this 
tender rite should be consecrated and recommend- 
ed ? Do you not rather believe that it originated 
in avarice — that it was promoted by conspiracy — 
25 



194 SPEECH. 

and that it would not perhaps have lingered through 
some months of crime, and then terminated in an 
heartless and disgusting abandonment ? 

Gentlemen, these are the questions which you 
will discuss in your jury-room. I am not afraid of 
your decision. Remember I ask you for no miti- 
gation of damages. Nothing less than your ver- 
dict will satisfy me. By that verdict you will 
sustain the dignity of your sex — by that verdict 
you will uphold the honour of the national charac- 
ter — by that verdict you will assure, not only the 
immense multitude of both sexes that thus so un- 
usually crowds around you, but the whole rising 
generation of your country, That marriage can 

NEVER BE ATTENDED WITH HONOUR OR BLESSED WITH 
HAPPINESS, IF IT HAS NOT ITS ORIGIN IN MUTUAL AF- 
FECTION. I surrender with confidence my case to 
your decision. 



[The damages were laid at 5000/., and the plaintiff's counsel 
were, in the end, contented to withdraw a juror, and let him pay 
his own costs.] 



A 

CHARACTER 



NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE, 

DOWN TO THE PERIOD OE 

HIS EXILE TO ELBA. 



He IS FALLEN ! 

We may now pause before that splendid prodigy, 
which towered amongst us like some ancient ruin, 
whose frown terrified the glance its magnificence 
attracted. 

Grand, gloomy, and peculiar, he sat upon the 
throne, a sceptered hermit, wrapt in the solitude 
of his own originality. 

A mind bold, independent and decisive — a 
will, despotic in its dictates — an energy that dis- 
tanced expedition, and a conscience pliable to 
every touch of interest, marked the outline of this 
extraordinary character — the most extraordinary, 
perhaps, that, in the annals of this world, ever rose, 
or reigned, or fell. 

Flung into life, in the midst of a revolution, that 
quickened every energy of a people who acknow- 
ledged no superior, he commenced his course, a 
stranger by birth, and a scholar by charity ! 



196 CHARACTER OF N. BUONAPARTE, 

With no friend but his sword, and no fortune 
but his talents, he rushed into the lists where 
rank, and wealth, and genius had arrayed them- 
selves, and competition fled from him as from tfye 
glance of destiny. He knew no motive but in- 
terest — he acknowledged no criterion but success 
— he worshipped no God but ambition, and with 
an eastern devotion he knelt at the shrine of his 
idolatry. Subsidiary to this, there was no creed 
that he did not profess, there was no opinion that 
he did not promulgate ; in the hope of a dinasty, 
he upheld the crescent ; for the sake of a divorce, 
he bowed before the cross : the orphan of St. 
Louis he became the adopted child of the Repub- 
lic : and with a parricidal ingratitude, on the ruins 
both of the throne and the tribune, he reared the 
throne of his despotism. 

A professed catholic, he imprisoned the pope ; 
a pretended patriot, he impoverished the country ; 
and in the name of Brutus,* he grasped without 
remorse, and wore without shame, the diadem of 
the Caesars ! 

Through this pantomime of his policy, Fortune 
played the clown to his caprices. At his touch, 
crowns crumbled, beggars reigned, systems va- 
nished, the wildest theories took the colour of his 
whim, and all that was venerable, and all that was 
novel, changed places with the rapidity of a drama. 
Even apparent defeat assumed the appearance of 
victory — his flight from Egypt confirmed his desti- 
ny — ruin itself only elevated him to empire. 

But if his fortune was great, his genius was tran- 
scendent ; decision flashed upon his councils ; and 

* In his hypocritical cant after liberty, in the commencement 

of the revolution, he assumed the name of Brutus Proh 

Pudor ! 



CHARACTER OF N.. BUONAPARTE. 197 

it was the same to decide and to perform. To 
inferior intellects, his combinations appeared per- 
fectly impossible, his plans perfectly impracti- 
cable ; but, in his hands, simplicity marked their 
development, and success vindicated their adop- 
tion. 

His person partook the character of his mind — 
if the one never yielded in the cabinet, the other 
never bent in the field. 

Nature had no obstacles that he did not sur- 
mount — space no opposition that he did not spurn ; 
and whether amid Alpine rocks, Arabian sands, or 
polar snows, he seemed proof against peril, and 
empowered with ubiquity ! The whole continent 
of Europe trembled at beholding the audacity of 
his designs, and the miracle of their execution. 
Scepticism bowed to the prodigies of his perform- 
ance ; romance assumed the air of history ; nor 
was there aught too incredible for belief, or too fan- 
ciful for expectation, when the world saw a subal- 
tern of Corsica waving his imperial flag over her 
most ancient capitals. All the visions of antiquity 
became common places in his contemplation ; kings 
were his people — nations were his outposts ; and 
he disposed of courts, and crowns, and camps, and 
churches, and cabinets, as if they were the titular 
dignitaries of the Ghess-board ! 

Amid all these changes he stood immutable as 
adamant. It mattered little whether in the field 
or the drawing-room — with the mob or the levee — 
wearing the jacobin bonnet or the iron crown — 
banishing a Braganza, or espousing a Hapsburgh — 
dictating peace on a raft to the czar of Russia, or 
contemplating defeat at the gallows of Leipsic — 
he was still the same military despot ! 



198 CHARACTER OF N. BUONAPARTE. 

Cradled in the camp, he was to the last hour the 
darling of the army ; and whether in the camp or 
the cabinet he never forsook a friend or forgot a 
favour. Of all his soldiers, not one abandoned 
him, till affection was useless, and their first-fitipu- 
lation was for the safety of their favourite. 

They knew well that if he was lavish of them, he 
was prodigal of himself; and that if he exposed 
them to peril, he repaid them with plunder. For 
the soldier, he subsidized every people ; to the peo- 
ple he made even pride pay tribute. The victori- 
ous veteran glittered with his gains ; and the capi- 
tal, gorgeous with the spoils of art, became the mi- 
niature metropolis of the universe. In this wonder- 
ful combination, his affection of literature must 
not be omitted. The gaoler of the press, he af- 
fected the patronage of letters — the proscriber of 
books, he encouraged philosophy — the persecu- 
tor of authors, and the murderer of printers, he 
yet pretended to the protection of learning ! — the 
assassin of Palm, the silencer of De Stael, and the 
denouncer of Kotzebue, he was the friend of David, 
the benefactor of De Lille, and sent his academic 
prize to the philosopher of England.* 

Such a medley of contradictions, and at the same 
time such an invidual consistency, were never 
united in the same character. A royalist — a re- 
publican and an emperor — a mahometan — a ca- 
tholic and a patron of the synagogue — a subaltern 
and a sovereign — a traitor and a tyrant — a 
christian and an infidel — he was, through all his 
vicissitudes, the same stern, impatient, inflexible 
original — the same mysterious incomprehensible 

* Sir Humphry Davy was transmitted the first prize of the 
Academy of Sciences. 



CHARACTER OF N. BUONAPARTE. 199 

self— the man without a model, and without a 
shadow. 

His fall, like his life, baffled all speculation. In 
short, his whole history was like a dream to the 
world, and no man can tell how or why he was 
awakened from the reverie. 

Such is a faint and feeble picture of Napoleon 
Buonaparte, the first (and it is to be hoped the 
last) emperor of the French. ^, 

That he has done much evil there is-little doubt ; 
that he has been the origin of much good, there is 
just as little. Through his means, intentional or 
not, Spain, Portugal, and France have arisen to 
the blessings of a Free Constitution ; superstition 
has found her grave in the ruins of the inquisi- 
tion ; and the feudal system, with its whole train 
of tyrannic satellites, has fled for ever. Kings 
may learn from him that their safest study, as well 
as their noblest, is the interest of the people ; the 
people are taught by him that there is no despotism 
so stupendous against which they have not a re- 
source; and to those who would rise upon the 
ruins of both, he is a living lesson that if ambition 
can raise them from the lowest station, it can also 
prostrate them from the highest. 



MR. PHILLIPS 



IN THE CASE OB 



BROWNE v. BLAKE, 



My Lords and Gentlemen, 

I am instructed by the plaintiff to lay his case 
before you, and little do I wonder at the great in- 
terest which it seems to have excited. It is one 
of those cases which come home to the " business 
and the bosoms of mankind — it is not confined to 
the individuals concerned — it visits every circle 
from the highest to the lowest — it alarms the very 
heart of the community, and commands the whole 
social family to the spot, where human nature 
prostrated at the bar of public justice, calls aloud 
for pity and protection ! On my first addressing a 
jury on a subject of this nature, I took the high 
ground to which I deemed myself entitled — I 
stood upon the purity of the national character — I 
relied upon that chastity which centuries had 
made proverbial, and almost drowned the cry of 
individual suffering in the violated reputation of 
the country. Humbled and abashed, I must re- 
sign the topic — indignation at the novelty of the 
offence has given way to horror at the frequency 



# 
SPEECH.* 201 

©f the repetition. It is now becoming almost 
fashionable among .us ; we are importing the fol- 
lies, and naturalizing the vices of the continent ; 
scarcely a term passes in these courts, during 
which some unabashed adulterer or seducer does 
not announce himself improving on the odious- 
ness of his offence, by the profligacy of his justifi- 
cation, and as it were, struggling to record, by 
crimes, the desolating progress of our barbarous 
civilization. Gentlemen, if this be suffered to 
continue, what home shall be safe, what hearth 
shall be sacred, what parent can, for a moment, 
calculate on the possession of his child, what 
child shall be secure against the orphan age that 
springs from prostitution ; what solitary right, 
whether life or liberty, or property in the land, 
shall survive amongst us, if that hallowed couch 
which modesty has veiled and love endeared and 
religion consecrated, is to be invaded by a vulgar 
and promiscuous libertinism ! A time there was 
when that couch was inviolable in Ireland — when 
conjugal infidelity was deemed but an invention — 
when marriage was considered as a sacrament of 
the heart, and faith and affection sent a mingled 
flame together from the altar ; are such times to 
dwindle into a legend of tradition ; are the dear- 
est rights of man, and the holiest ordinances of 
God, no more to be respected ! Is the marriage 
vow to become but the prelude to perjury and 
prostitution ! Shall our enjoyments debase them- 
selves into an adulterous participation, and our 
children propagate an incestuous community ! 
hear the case which I am fated to unfold, and 
then tell me whether a single virtue is yet to lin- 
ger amongst us with impunity — whether honour, 
friendship or hospitality, are to be sacred-^- 
26 



202 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 

whether that endearing confidence, by which the 
bitterness of this life is sweetened, is to become 
the instrument of a perfidy, beyond conception ; 
and whether the protection of the roof, the fra- 
ternity of the board, the obligations of the al- 
tar, and the devotion of the heart, are to be so 
many panders to the hellish abominations they 
should have purified — Hear the case which must 
go forth to the world, but which I trust in God 
your verdict will accompany, to tell that world, 
that if there was vice enough amongst us to com- 
mit the crime, there is virtue enough to brand it 
with an indignant punishment. 

Of the plaintiff, Mr. Browne, it is quite impos- 
sible but you must have heard much — his misfor- 
tune has given him a sad celebrity, and it does 
seem a peculiar incident to such misfortune that 
the loss of happiness is almost invariably succeed- 
ed by the deprivation of character. As the less 
guilty murderer will hide the corse that may lead 
to his detection, so does the adulterer, by obscur- 
ing the reputation of his victim, seek to diminish 
the moral responsibility he has incurred. Mr. 
Browne undoubtedly forms no exception to this 
system — betrayed by his friend, and abandoned by 
his wife, his too generous confidence, his too ten- 
der love has been slanderously perverted into the 
sources of calumny — because he could not tyran- 
ize over her whom he adored, he was careless — 
because he could not suspect him in whom he 
trusted, he was careless ; and crime in the infatu- 
ation of its cunning found its justification even in 
the virtues of its victim ! I am not deterred by the 
prejudice thus cruelly excited — I appeal from the 
gossiping credulity of scandal to the grave de- 
cision of fathers and of husbands, and 1 implore 



BROWNE v. BLAKE. 203 

of you, as you value the blessings of your homes, 
not to countenance the calumny which solicits a 
precedent to excuse their spoliation. At the close 
of the year ! 809, the death of my client's fa- 
ther gave him the inheritance of an ample for- 
tune. Of all the joys his prosperity created, there 
was none but yielded to the ecstacy of sharing it 
with her he loved, the daughter of his father's an- 
cient friend, the respectable proprietor of Oren 
castle. She was then in the very spring of life, and 
never did the sun of Heaven unfold a lovelier blos- 
som— her look was beauty and her breath was fra- 
grance — the eye that saw her caught a lustre from 
the vision ; and all the vision, and all the virtues 
seemed to linger round her, like so many spotless 
spirits enamoured of her lovelinesss. 

" Yes, she was good as she was fair, 
None, none on earth above her ; 
As pure in thought as angels are, 
To see her, was to love her." 

What years of tongueless transport might not 
her happy husband have anticipated ! What one 
addition could her beauties gain to render them 
all perfect ! In the connubial rapture there was 
only one and he was blessed with it. A lovely 
family of infant children gave her the consecrated 
name of mother, and with it all that Heaven can 
give of interest to this world's worthlessness. 
Can the mind imagine a more delightful vision 
than that of such a mother, thus young, thus love- 
ly, thus beloved, blessing a husband's heart, bask- 
ing in a world's smile, and while she breathed in- 
to her little ones the moral light, showing them 
that robed in all the light of beauty, it was still 



204 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 

possible for their virtues to cast it into the shade. 
Year after year of happiness rolled on, and every 
year but added to their love a pledge, to make it 
happier than the former. Without ambition but 
her husband's love, without one object but her 
children's happiness, this lovely woman circled in 
her orbit, all bright, all beauteous in the prospe- 
rous hour, and if that hour ever darkened, only 
beaming the brighter and the lovelier. What hu- 
man hand could mar so pure a picture ! W T hat 
punishment could adequately visit its violation ! 

" Oh happy love, where love like this is found ! 
Oh heartfelt rapture ! bliss beyond compare." 

It was indeed the summer of their lives, and 
with it came the swarm of summer friends, that 
revel in its splendour. High and honoured in that 
crowd — most gay, most cherished, most professing, 
stood the defendant, Mr. Blake. He was the 
plaintiff's dearest, fondest friend, to every plea- 
sure called, in every case consulted, his day's com- 
panion, and his evening guest ; his constant, trust- 
ed, bosom confidant, and under guise of all, Oh, 
human nature ! he was his fellest, deadliest, final 
enemy ! Here, on the authority of this brief, do I 
arraign him of having counterfeited a sympathy 
in his joys and in his sorrows ; and when he seem- 
ed too pure even for scepticism itself to doubt him, 
of having under the very sanctity of his roof, per- 
petrated an adultery the most unprecedented and 
perfidious. If this be true, can the world's wealth 
defray the penalty of such turpitude ? Mr. Browne, 
gentlemen, was ignorant of every agricultural pur- 
suit, and unfortunately adopting the advice of his 
father-in-law, he cultivated the amusements of the 



BROWNE v. BLAKE. 205 

Curragh. I say unfortunately, for his own affairs, 
and by no means in reference to the pursuit itself. 
It is not for me to libel an occupation which the 
highest, and noblest, and most illustrious through- 
out the empire countenance by their adoption, 
which fashion and virtue graces by its attendance, 
and in which peers and legislators and princes are 
not ashamed to appear conspicuous. But if the 
morality that countenances it be doubtful, by what 
epithets shall we designate that which would 
make it an apology for the most profligate of of- 
fences ? Even if Mr. Browne's pursuits were ever 
so erroneous, was it for his bosom friend to take 
advantage of them to ruin him ? On this subject, 
it is sufficient for me to remark, that under cir- 
cumstances of prosperity or vicissitudes, was their 
connubial happiness ever even remotely clouded ! 
In fact, the plaintiff disregarded even the amuse- 
ments that deprived him of her society. He took 
a house for her vicinity of Kildare, furnished it 
with all that luxury could require, and afforded 
her the greatest of all luxuries, that of enjoying 
and enhancing his most prodigal affection. From 
the hour of their marriage, up to the unfortunate 
discovery, they lived on terms of the utmost ten- 
derness ; not a word, except of mutual endear- 
ment, passed between them. Now, gentlemen, if 
this be proved to you, here I take my stand, and I 
say, under no earthly circumstances, can a justifi- 
cation of the adulterer be adduced. No matter 
with what delinquent sophistry he may blaspheme 
through its palliation, God ordained, nature ce- 
mented — happiness consecrated that celestial un- 
ion, and it is complicated treason against God and 
man, and society, to intend its violation. The so- 
cial compact, through every fibre trembles at its 



206 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 

consequences; not only policy but law, not only 
law, but nature, not only nature but religion, de- 
precate and denounce it — parent and offspring- 
youth and age — the dead from the tombs — the 
child from its cradle — creatures scarce alive, and 
creatures still unborn; the grand-sire shivering 
on the verge of death ; the infant quickening in 
the mothers's womb ; all with one assent re-echo 
God, and execrate adultery ! I say, then, where it 
is once proved that husband and wife live together 
in a state of happiness, no contingency on which 
the sun can shine, can warrant any man in attempt- 
ing their separation. Did they do so ? That is 
imperatively your first consideration. I only hope 
that all the hearts religion has joined together, 
may have enjoyed the happiness that they did. 
Their married state, was one continued honey- 
moon ; and if ever cloud arose to dim it, before 
love's sigh it fled, and left its orb the brighter. 
Prosperous and wealthy fortune had no charms for 
Mr. Browne, but as it blessed the object of his af- 
fections. She made success delightful ; she gave 
his wealth its value. The most splendid equipa- 
ges—the most costly luxuries, the richest retinue 
— all that vanity could invent to dazzle — all that 
affection could devise, to gratify, were her's, and 
thought too vile for her enjoyment. Great as his 
fortune was, his love outshone it, and it seems as 
if fortune was jealous of the performance. Pro- 
verbially capricious, she withdrew her smile, and 
left him shorn almost of every thing except his 
love, and the fidelity that crowned it. 

The hour of adversity is woman's hour — in the 
full blaze of fortune's rich meridian, her modest 
beam retires from vulgar notice, but when the 
clouds of wo collect around us, and shades and 



BROWNE v. BLAKE. 207 

darkness dim the wanderer's path, that chaste and 
lovely light shines forth to cheer him, an emblem 
and an emanation of the heavens ! It was then her 
love, her value, and her power was visible. No, 
it is not for the cheerfulness with which she bore 
the change I prize her — it is not that without a 
sigh she surrendered all the baubles of prosperity 
— but that she pillowed her poor husband's heart, 
welcomed adversity to make him happy, held up 
her little children as the wealth that no adversity 
could take away ; and when she found his spirit 
broken and his soul dejected, with a masculine un- 
derstanding, retrieved in some degree, his despe- 
rate fortunes, and saved the little wreck that sola- 
ced their retirement. What was such a woman 
worth, I ask you ? If you can stoop to estimate by 
dross the worth of such a creature, give me even 
a notary's calculation, and tell me then what she 
was worth to him to whom she had consecrated 
the bloom of her youth, the charm of her inno- 
cence, the splendour of her beauty, the wealth of 
her tenderness, the power of her genius, the trea- 
sure of her fidelity ? She, the mother of his chil- 
dren, the pulse of his heart, the joy of his prospe- 
rity, the solace of his misfortunes — what was she 
worth to him ? Fallen as she is, you may still esti- 
mate her; you may see her value even in her ruin.. 

The gem is sullied the diamond is shivered ; 

but even in its dust you may see the magnificence 
of its material. After this, they retired to Rock- 
ville, their seat in the county of Galway, where 
they resided in the most domestic manner, on the 
remnant of their once splendid establishment. — 
The butterflies that in their noon-tide fluttered 
round them, vanished at the first breath of their 
adversity; but one early friend still remained 



20& SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 

faithful and affectionate, and that was the defen- 
dant. Mr. Blake is a young gentlemen of about 
eight and twenty ; of splendid fortune, polished in 
his manners, interesting in his appearance, with 
many qualities to attach a friend, and every quali- 
ty to fascinate a female. Most willingly do I pay 
the tribute which nature claims for him ; most bit- 
terly do I lament that he has been so ungrateful to 
so prodigal a benefactress. The more Mr. Browne's 
fortunes accumulated, the more disinterestedly at- 
tached did Mr. Blake appear to him. He shared 
with him his purse, he assisted him with his coun- 
sel : in an affair of honour he placed his life and 
character in his hands — he introduced his inno- 
cent sister, just arrived from an English nunnery, 
into the family of his friend — he encouraged every 
reciprocity of intercourse between the females ; 
and, to crown all, that no possible suspicion might 
attach to him, he seldom travelled without his do- 
mestic chaplain ! Now, if it shall appear that all 
this was only a screen for his adultery — that he 
took advantage of his friend's misfortune to se- 
duce the wife of his bosom — that he affected con- 
fidence only to betray it — that he perfected the 
wretchedness he pretended to console, and that in 
the midst of poverty he has left his victim, friend- 
less, hopeless, companionlets ; a husband without 
a wife, and a father without a child. Gracious 
God ! is it not enough to turn Mercy herself into 
an executioner ! You convict for murder — here is 
the hand that murdered innocence ! You convict 
for treason — here is the vilest disloyalty to friend- 
ship ! You convict for robbery — here is one who 
plundered virtue of her dearest pearl, and dissol- 
ved it even in the bowl that hospitality held out to 
him ! ! They pretend that he is innocent ! Oh ef- 



BROWNE v. BLAKE. 209 

frontery the most unblushing! Oh vilest insult, 
added to the deadliest injury ! Oh base, detestable 
and damnable hypocrisy ! Of the final testimony 
it is true enough their cunning has deprived us : 
but under Providence, I shall pour upon this base- 
ness such a flood of light, that I will defy, not the 
most honourable man merely, but the most charit- 
able sceptic, to touch the Holy Evangelist, and say, 
by their sanctity, it has not been committed. At- 
tend upon me, now gentlemen, step by step, and 
with me rejoice, that, no matter how cautious may 
be the conspiracies of guilt, there is a Power above 
to confound and to discover them. 

On the 27th of last January, Mary Hines, one 
of the domestics, received directions from Mrs. 
Browne, to have breakfast ready very early on 
the ensuing morning, as the defendant, then on a 
visit at the house, expressed an inclination to go 
out to hunt. She was accordingly brushing down 
the stairs at a very early hour, when she observ- 
ed the handle of the door stir, and fearing the 
noise had disturbed her, she ran instantly down 
stairs to avoid her displeasure. She remained be- 
low about three quarters of an hour, when her mas- 
ter's bell ringing violently she hastened to answer 
it. He asked her in some alarm where her mistress 
was ! naturally enough astonished at such a ques- 
tion at such an hour, she said she knew not, but 
would go down and see whether or not she was in 
the parlour. Mr. Browne, however, had good 
reason to be alarmed, for she was so extremely in- 
disposed going to bed at night that an express 
stood actually prepared to bring medical aid from 
Galway, unless she appeared better. An unusual 
depression both of mind and body preyed upon 
Mrs. Browne on the preceding evening. She fre- 
27 



210 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 

quently burst into tears, threw her arms around 
her husband's neck, saying that she was sure an- 
other month would separate her for ever from him 
and her dear children. It was no accidental omen. 
Too surely the warning of Providence was upon 
her. When the maid was going down, Mr. Blake 
appeared at his door totally undressed and in a tone 
of much confusion desired that his servant should 
be sent up to him. She went down — as she was 
about to return from her ineffectual search, she 
heard her master's voice in the most violent indig- 
nation, and almost immediately after Mrs. Browne 
rushed past her into the parlour, and hastily seizing 
her writing desk desired her instantly to quit her 
apartment. Gentlemen, I request that you will 
bear every syllable of this scene in your recollec- 
tion, but most particularly the anxiety about her 
writing desk. You will soon find that there was a 
cogent reason for it. Little was the wonder that 
Mr. Browne's tone should be that of violence and 
indignation. He had discovered his wife and friend 
totally undressed, just as they had escaped from 
the guilty bedside where they stood in all the shame 
and horror of their situation ! He shouted for her 
brother, and that miserable brother had the agony 
of witnessing his guilty sister in the bed room of 
her paramour, both almost literally in a state 
of nudity. Blake ! Blake ! exclaimed the heart 
struck husband, is this the return you have made 
for my hospitality ? Oh, heavens ! what a reproach 
was there ! It was not merely, you have dishonour- 
ed my bed — It was not merely, you have sacrificed 
my happiness — it was not merely, you have widow- 
ed me in my youth, and left me the father of an 
orphan family — it was not merely, you have viola- 
ted a compact to which all the world swore a tacit 



BROWNE v. BLAKE. 211 

veneration — but, you — you have done it, my friend, 
my guest, under the very roof barbarians rever- 
ence; where you pledged my happiness ; where you 
saw her in all the loveliness of her virtue, and at 
the very hour when our little helpless children were 
wrapt in that repose of which you have for ever 
robbed their miserable parents ! I do confess when 
I paused here in the perusal of these instructions, 
the very life blood froze within my veins. What, 
said I, must I not only reveal this guilt ! must I not 
only expose this perfidy ! must I not only brand the 
infidelity of a wife and a mother, but must I, amidst 
the agonies of outraged nature, make the brother 
the proof of the sister's prostitution ! Thank God, 
gentlemen, I may not be obliged to torture you and 
him and myself, by such instrumentality. I think 
the proof is full without it, though it must add an- 
other pang to the soul of the poor plaintiff, because 
it must render it almost impossible that his little 
infants are not the brood of this adulterous depra- 
vity. It will be distinctly proved to you by Hono- 
ria Brennan, another of the servants, that one night, 
so far back as the May previous to the last men- 
tioned occurrence, when she was in the act of ar- 
ranging the beds, she saw Mr. Blake come up 
stairs, look cautiously about him, go to Mrs. B's 
bed-room door and tap at it ; that immediate- 
ly after Mrs. Browne went, with no other cover- 
ing than her shift, to Mr. Blake's bed-chamber, 
where the guilty parties locked themselves up to- 
gether. Terrified and astonished, the maid retired 
to the servant's apartments, and in about a quar- 
ter of an hour after she saw Mrs. Browne in the 
same habiliments return from the bed-room of Blake 
into her husband's. Gentlemen, it was by one of 
those accidents which so often accompany and oo 



212 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 

casion the development of guilt, that we have ar- 
rived at this evidence. It was very natural that 
she did not wish to reveal it ; very natural that she 
did not wish either to expose her mistress, or af- 
flict her unconscious master with the recital; 
very natural that she did not desire to be the in- 
strument of so frightful a discovery. However, 
when she found that concealment was out of the 
question; that the action was actually in progress, 
and that the guilty delinquent was publicly triumph- 
ing in the absence of proof, and through an herd of 
slanderous dependants, cruelly vilifying the charac- 
ter of his victim ; she sent a friend to Mr. Browne, 
and in his presence and that of two others, solemn- 
ly discovered her melancholy information. Gen- 
tlemen, I do intreat of you to examine this woman, 
though she is an uneducated peasant, with all se- 
verity, because if she speaks the truth, I think you 
will agree with me, that so horrible a complication 
of iniquity never disgraced the annals of a court of 
justice. He had just risen from the table of his 
friend — he left his own brother and that friend be- 
hind him, and even from the very board of his hos- 
pitality, he proceeded to the defilement of his bed ! 
Of mere adultery I had heard before. It was bad 
enough — a breach of all law, religion and morality 
_but — what shall I call this ?— that seduced inno- 
cence — insulted misfortune — betrayed friendship- 
violated hospitality — tore up the very foundations 
of human nature, and hurled its fragments at the 
violated altar, as if to bury religion beneath the ru- 
ins of society ! ! Oh, it is guilt might put a daemon 
to the blush ! 

Does not proof rest here ? No ; though the mind 
must be sceptical that after this could doubt. A 
guilty correspondence was carried on between the 



BROWNE v. BLAKE. 213 

parties, and though its contents were destroyed by 
Mrs. Browne, on the morning of the discovery, 
still we shall authenticate the fact beyond suspi- 
cion. You shall hear it from the very messenger 
they entrusted — you shall hear it from him too, 
that the wife and the adulterer both bound him to 
the utmost secrecy, at once establishing their own 
collusion and their own victim's ignorance, proving 
by the very anxiety for concealment, the impossi- 
bility of connivance ; so true it is that the convic- 
tion of guilt will often proceed even from the strat- 
agem for its security. Does our proof rest here ? 
No ; you shall have it from a gentleman of unim- 
peachable veracity, that the defendant himself con- 
fessed the discovery in his bed-room — " I will save 
him," said he, " the trouble of proving it ; she 
was in her shift, and I was in my shirt. I know 
very well a jury will award damages against me : 
ask Browne will he agree to compromise it ; he 
owes me some money, and I will give him the over- 
plus in horses !" Can you imagine any thing more 
abominable. He seduced from his friend the idol 
of his soul, and the mother of his children, and when 
he was writhing under the recent wound he delibe- 
rately offers him brutes in compensation ! I will not 
deprecate this cruelty by any comment ; yet the 
very brute he would-barter for that unnatural mo- 
ther, would have lost its life rather than desert its 
offspring. Now, gentlemen, what rational mind 
but must spurn the asseveration of innocence after 
this ? Why the anxiety about the writing desk ? 
Why a clandestine correspondence with her hus- 
band's friend ? Why remain, at two different pe- 
riods, for a quarter of an hour together in a gentle- 
man's bed-chamber, with no other habiliment, at 
one time, than her bed-dress, at another than her 



214 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 

shift ? Is this customary with the married females 
of this country ? Is this to be a precedent for our 
wives and daughters sanctioned too by you, their 
parents and their husbands ? Why did he confess 
that a verdict for damages must go against him, 
and make the offer of that unfeeling compromise ? 
Was it because he was innocent? The very judg- 
ment by default, a distinct, undeniable corrobora- 
tion of his guilt. Was it that the female character 
should not suffer ? Could there be a more trumpet- 
tongued proclamation of her criminality ? Are 
our witnesses suborned ? Let his army of counsel 
sift and torture them. Can they prove it ? — O yes, 
if it be proveable. Let them produce her brother 
— in our hands, a damning proof to be sure ; but 
then, frightful, afflicting, unnatural — in theirs, the 
most consolatory and delightful, the vindication of 
calumniated innocence, and that innocence the in- 
nocence of a sister. Such is the leading outline of 
our evidence — evidence which you will only won- 
der is so convincing in a case whose very nature 
pre-supposes the most cautious secrecy. The law, 
indeed, gentlemen, duly estimating the difficulty of 
a final proof in this species of action has recognized 
the validity or inferential evidence, but on that sub- 
ject his lordship must direct you. 

Do they rely then on the ground of innocency ? 
If they do, I submit to you on the authority of the 
law, that inferential testimony amounts to demon- 
stration. Amongst the innumerable calumnies, 
afloat, it has been hinted to me, indeed, that they 
mean to rely upon what they denominate the in- 
discretion of the husband. The moment they have 
the hardihood to resort to that, they, of course, 
abandon all denial of delinquency, and even were 
it fully proved, it is then worth your most serious 



BROWNE v. BLAKE. 215 

consideration, whether you will tolerate such a de- 
fence as that. It is in my mind beyond all endu- 
rance, that any man should dare to come in a 
court of justice, and on the shadow of pretence 
of what he may term carelessness, ground the most 
substantial and irreparable injury. Against the 
unmanly principle of conjugal severity, in the name 
of civilized society I solemnly protest. It is not 
fitted for the meridian, and, I hope, will never 
amalgamate itself with the manners of this country 
— it is the most ungenerous and insulting suspicion, 
reduced into the most unmanly and despotic prac- 
tice. 

" Let barbarous nations whose human blood 
Is wild desire, fierce as the suns they feel ; 
Let eastern tyrants, from the light of Heaven 
Seclude their bosom slaves, meanly possessed. 
Of a mere lifeless violated form — 
While those whom love cements in the holy faith, 
And equal transport, free as nature live, 
Disdaining fear." 

But once establish the principle of this moral and 
domestic censorship, and then tell me where is it 
to begin ? Where is it to end ? Who shall bound ? 
Who shall preface it ? By what hitherto undiscov- 
erable standard, shall we regulate the shades be- 
tween solemnity and levity? Will you permit this 
impudent espionage upon your house-holds ; upon 
the hallowed privacy of your domestic hour; and 
for what purpose ? Why, that the seducer and the 
adulterer may calculate the security of his cold- 
blooded libertinism ! — that he may steal like an as- 
sassin upon your hours of relaxation, and convert 
perhaps your confidence into the instrument of your 
ruin ! If this be once permitted as a ground of jus- 



216 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 

tification, we may bid farewell at once to all the 
delightful intercourse of social life. Spurning as I 
do at this odious system of organized distrusts, sup- 
pose the admission made, that my client was care- 
less, indiscreet, culpable, if they will, in his domes- 
tic regulations, is it therefore to be endured, that 
every abandoned burglar should seduce his wife, 
or violate his daughter? Is it to be endured, that 
Mr. Blake of all men should rely on such an infa- 
mous and convenient extenuation ? He — his friend, 
his guest, his confidant, he who introduced a spot- 
less sister to this attained intimacy ; shall he say, 
I associated with you hourly, I affected your fa- 
miliarity for many years. I accompanied my do- 
mesticated minister of religion to your family ; I 
almost naturalized the nearest female relative I 
had on earth, unsullied and unmarried as she was 
within your house-hold ; but — you fool — it was 
only to turn it into a brothel ! ! Merciful God, will 
you endure him when he tells you thus, that he is 
on the watch to prowl upon the weakness of hu- 
manity, and audaciously solicits your charter for 
such libertinism. 

I have heard it asserted also, that they mean to 
arraign the husband as a conspirator, because in 
the hour of confidence and misfortune he accepted 
a proffered pecuniary assistance from the man he 
thought his friend. It is true he did so; but so 
I will say, criminally careful was he of his interests 
that he gave him his bond, and made him enter 
up judgment on that bond, and made him issue 
an execution on that judgment, ready to be levied 
in a day, that in the wreck of all, the friend of his 
bosom should be at least indemnified. It was my 
impression indeed, that under a lease of this na- 
ture, amongst honourable men, so far from rny un- 



BROWNE v. BLAKE. 217 

warrantable privilege created, there was rather a 
peculiar delicacy, incumbent on the the donor. I 
should have thought so still but for a frightful ex- 
pression of one of the counsel on the motion, by 
which they endeavoured not to trust a Dublin ju- 
ry with this issue. What, exclaimed they, in all 
the pride of their execrable instructions, " a poor 
plaintiff and a rich defendant! Is there nothing in 
that?" No, if my client's shape does not belie his 
species, there is nothing in that. I braved the 
assertion as a calumny on human nature — I call on 
you, if such an allegation be repeated, to visit it 
with vindictive and overwhelming damages ? I 
would appeal, not to this civilized assembly, but 
to an horde of savages, whether it is possible for 
the most inhuman monster thus to sacrifice to infa- 
my, his character — his wife — his home — his chil- 
dren ! In the name of possibility I deny it; in the 
name of humanity, I denounce it; in the name of 
our common country, and our common nature, I 
implore of the learned counsel not to promulgate 
such a slander upon both — but I need not do so ; 
if the zeal of advocacy should induce them to the 
attempt, memory would array their happy homes 
before them — their little children would lisp its 
contradiction — their love — their hearts — their in- 
structive feelings as fathers, as husbands, would 
rebel within them, and wither up the horrid blas- 
phemy upon their lips. 

They will find it difficult to palliate such turpi- 
tude — I am sure I find it difficult to aggravate. 
It is in itself a hyperbole of wickedness. Honour, 
innocence, religion, friendship — all that is sanctifi- 
ed and lovely, or endearing in creation. Even that 
hallowed, social, shall I not say indigenous virtue 
— that blessed hospitality — which foreign envy 
23 



218 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 

could not deny, or foreign robbery despoil — which 
when all else had perished, cast a bloom on our 
desolation, flinging its rich foliage over the na- 
tional ruin, as if to hide the monument, while it 
gave a shelter to the mourner — even that wither- 
ed away before that pestilence ! But what do I 
say ! was virtue merely the victim of this adulte- 
rer ? Worse, worse — it was his instrument — even 
on the broken tablet of the decalogue did he whet 
the dagger of his social assassination — What will 
you say, when I inform you, that a few months 
before he went deliberately to the baptismal font 
with the waters of life to regenerate the infant 
that, too well could he avouch, had been born in 
sin, and he promised to teach Christianity ? — 
And he promised to guard it against " the flesh !" 
And lest infinite mercy should overlook the sins 
of its adulterous father, seeking to make his God 
his, pander, he tried to damn it even with the sa- 
crament ! ! See then the horrible atrocity of this 
case as it touches the defendant — it has been in- 
flicted by his friend, and inflicted beneath his 
roof — it commences at a period which casts a 
doubt on the legitimacy of his children, and to 
crown all, " upon him a son is born," even since 
the separation upon whom every shilling of his 
estates has entailed by settlement ! What com- 
pensation can reprise so unparalleled a sufferer ? 
— What solitary consolation is there in reserve for 
for him ? Is it love ? Alas, there was one whom he 
adored with all the heart's idolatry, and she de- 
serted him. Is it friendship ? There was one of all 
whom he trusted, and that one betrayed him. Is 
it society ? The smile of others' happiness appears 
but the epitaph of his own. Is it solitude? Can 
he be alone while memory, striking on the sepul- 



BROWNE v. BLAKE. 219 

chre of his heart, calls into existence the spectres 
of the past. Shall he fly for refuge to his " sacred 
home ?" Every object there is eloquent of his 
ruin ! Shall he seek a mournful solace in his chil- 
dren ? Oh, he has no children — there is the little 
favourite that she nursed, and there — there— even 
on its guileless features — there is the horrid smile 
of the adulterer ! ! 

O gentlemen, am I this day only the counsel of 
my client ? no — no— I am the advocate of human- 
ity—of yourselves — your homes — your wives — 
your families — your little children ; I am glad 
that this case exhibits such atrocity ; unmarked 
as it is by any mitigatory feature, it may stop the 
frightful advance of this calamity ; it will be met 
now and marked with vengeance ; if it be not, 
farewell to the virtues of your country ; farewell 
to all confidence between man and man ; farewell 
to that unsuspicious and reciprocal tenderness, 
without which marriage is but a consecrated curse ; 
if oaths are to be violated; laws disregarded; 
friendship betrayed ; humanity trampled ; nation- 
al and individual honour stained ; and that a jury 
of fathers, and of husbands will give such mis- 
creancy a passport to their homes, and wives and 
daughters ; farewell to all that yet remains to 
Ireland ! but I will not cast such a doubt upon the 
character of my country. Against the sneer of 
the foe, and the scepticism of the foreigner, I 
will still point to the domestic virtues, that no per- 
fidy could barter, and no bribery can purchase ; 
that with a Roman usage, at once embellish and 
consecrate households, giving to the society of the 
hearth all the purity of the altar; that lingering 
alike in the palace and cottage, are still to be 
found scattered over this land ; the relic of what 



220 SPEECH. 

she was; the source perhaps of what she may be; 
the lone, and statary, and magnificent memorials, 
that rearing their majesty amid surrounding ruins, 
serve at once as the land marks of the departed 
glory, and the models by which the future may be 
erected. 

Preserve those virtues with a vestal fidelity; 
mark this day by your verdict, by your horror at 
their profanation, and believe me, when the hand 
which records that verdict shall be dust, and the 
tongue that asks it traceless in the grave, many 
an happy home will bless its consequences, and 
many a mother teach her little child to hate the 
impious treason of adultery. 



MR. PHILLIPS 



IN THE CASE OE 



FITZGERALD v. KERR. 



My Lord, and you, Gentlemen of the Jury, 

You have already heard the nature of this ac- 
tion, and upon me devolves the serious duty of 
stating the circumstances in which it has originat- 
ed. Well indeed may I call it a serious duty, 
whether as it affects the individuals concerned, or 
the community at large. It is not merely the cause 
of my client, but that of society, which you are 
about to try ; it is your own question, and that of 
your dearest interests ; it is to decide whether there 
is any moral obligation to be respected, any reli- 
gious ordinance to be observed, any social commu- 
nion to be cherished ; it is, whether all the sympa- 
thies of our nature, and all the charities of our life, 
are to be but the condition of a capricious compact 
which a demoralized banditti may dissolve, just as 
it suits their pleasure or their appetite. Gentle- 
men, it has been the lot of my limited experience, 
to have known something of the few cases which 
have been grasped by our enemies as the pretext 
for our depreciation, and I can safely say, that there 



222 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 

was scarcely one which, when compared with this, 
did not sink into insignificance. They had all 
some redeeming quality about them — some casual 
and momentary acquaintance — some taint of con- 
jugal infidelity — some suspicion of conjugal conni- 
vance — some unpremeditated lapse of some youth- 
ful impulse, if not to justify, at least to apologize, 
or to palliate. But, in the case before you, the 
friendship is not sudden, but hereditary ; the suf- 
ferer is altogether spotless ; the connivance is an 
unsuspecting hospitality ; and so far from having 
youth to mitigate, the criminal is on the very verge 
of existence, forcing a reluctant nature into lust, by 
the mere dint of artificial stimulants, and strug- 
gling to elicit a joyless flame from not even the em- 
bers, but the ashes of expiring sensuality. One 
circumstance — one solitary circumstance can I find 
for consolation, and that is, that no hireling defa- 
mer can make this the source of accusation against 
our country : an Irishman indeed has been the vic- 
tim, and this land has been the scene of the pollu- 
tion, but here we stop : its perpetrators, thank Hea- 
ven, are of distant lineage : the wind of Ireland has 
not rocked their infancy : they have imported their 
crimes as an experiment on our people, — meant 
perhaps to try how far vice may outrun civilization 
— how fir our calumniators may have the attesta- 
tion of Irish fathers, and of Irish husbands, to the 
national depravity : you will tell them they are fa- 
tally mistaken ; you will tell a world incredulous to 
our merits, that the parents of Ireland love their 
little children; that her matron's smile is the cheer- 
fulness of innocence ; that her doors are open to 
every guest but infamy; and that even in that fatal 
hour,' when the clouds collected, and the tempest 
broke on us, chastity outspread her spotless wings. 



FITZGERALD v. KERR. 223 

and gave the household virtues a protection. When 
I name to you my unhappy client, I name a gentle- 
man upon whom, here at least, I need pass no eu- 
logium. To me, Mr. Fitzgerald is only known by 
his misfortunes; to you, his birth, his boyhood, and 
up to man's estate, his residence, have made him 
long familiar. 

" This is his own, his native land." 

And here, when I assert him warm and honour- 
able — spirited and gentle — a man, a gentleman, and 
a christian, if I am wrong, I can be instantly con- 
futed ; but if I am right, you will give him the ben- 
efit of his virtues — he will be heard in this his trial 
hour with a commiserating sympathy by that mo- 
rality whose cause he is the advocate, and of 
whose enemy he is the victim. A younger brother, 
the ample estates of his family devolved not upon 
him, and he was obliged to look for competence to 
the labours of a profession. Unhappily for him he 
chose the army — I say unhappily, because, inspir- 
ing him with a soldier's chivalry, it created a too 
generous credulity in the soldier's honour. In the 
year 1811, he was quartered with his regiment in 
the Island of Jersey, and there he met Miss Bree- 
done, the sister-in-law of a brother officer, a Major 
Mitchell of the artillery, and married her. She 
was of the age of fifteen — he of four-and-twenty : 
never was there an union of more disinterested at- 
tachment. She had no fortune, and he very little, 
independent of his profession. Gladly, gentlemen, 
could I pause here — gladly would I turn from what 
Mrs. Fitzgerald is, to what she then was : but I will 
not throw a mournful interest around her, for well I 
know, that in despite of all her errors, there is one 



224 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 

amongst us who, in his sorrow's solitude, for many 
a future year of misery, will turn to that darling 
though delusive vision, till his tears shut out the 
universe. He told me indeed that she was lovely ; 
but the light that gave the gem its brilliancy has va- 
nished. Genuine loveliness consists in virtue — all 
else is fleeting and perfidious ; it is as the orient 
dawn that ushers in the tempest — it is as the green 
and flowery turf, beneath which the earthquake 
slumbers. In a few months my client introduced 
her to his family, and here, beneath the roof of his 
sister, Mrs. Kirwan, for some years they lived most 
happily. You shall hear, as well from the inmates 
as from the habitual visitors, that there never was 
a fonder, a more doting husband, and that the affec- 
tion appeared to be reciprocal. Four infant babes, 
the wretched orphans of their living parents — doub- 
ly orphaned by a father's sorrows and a mother's 
shame — looked up to them for protection. Poor 
little innocent unheeding children, alas! they dream 
not that a world's scorn shall be their sad inherit- 
ance, and misery their handmaid from the cradle. 
As their family increased, a separate establishment 
was considered necessary, and to a most romantic 
little cottage on the estate of his brother, and the 
gift of his friendship, Mr. Fitzgerald finally remov- 
ed his household. 

Here, gentlemen, in this sequestered residence- 
blest with the woman whom he loved, the children 
he adored, with a sister's society, a brother's coun- 
sel, and a character that turned acquaintance into 
friendship, he enjoyed delights of which humanity 
I fear is not allowed a permanence. The human 
mind perhaps cannot imagine a lot of purer or more 
perfect happiness. It was a scene on which ambi- 
tion in its laureled hour might look with envy; com- 



FITZGERALD v. KERR. 225 

pared with which the vulgar glories of the world 
are vanity ; a spot of such serene and hallowed so- 
litude, that the heart must have been stormy and 
the spirit turbid, which its charmed silence did not 
soothe into contentment. Yet, even there, hell's 
emissary entered ; yet even hence the present god 
was banished ; its streams were poisoned, and its 
paths laid desolate; and its blossoms, blooming 
with celestial life, were withered into garlands for 
the tempter ! How shall I describe the hero of this 
triumph ? Is there a language that has words of 
fire to parch whate'er they light on ? Is there a 
phrase so potently calamitous that its kindness 
freezes and its blessings curse ? But no ; if you 
must see him, go to my poor client, upon whose 
breaking heart he crouches like a daemon ; go to his 
dead father's sepulchre — the troubled spirit of that 
early friend will shriek his maledictory description ; 
go to the orphan infant's cradle, without a mother's 
foot to rock, or a sire's arm to shield it — its word- 
less cries will pierce you with his character; or, 
hear from me the poor and impotent narration of 
his practices — hear how as a friend he murdered 
confidence — how as a guest he violated hospitality 
— how as a soldier he embraced pollution — how as 
a man he rushed to the perpetration, not merely of 
a lawless, but an unnatural enjoyment, over every 
human bliss, and holy sacrament, and then say whe- 
ther it is in mortal tongue to epitomize those prac- 
tices into a characteristic epithet ! He is, you know 
gentlemen, an officer of dragoons, and about twen- 
ty years ago was in that capacity quartered in this 
county. His own manners, imposing beyond de- 
scription, and the habitual hospitality of Ireland to 
the military, rendered his society universally soli- 
cited. He was in every house, and welcomed eve- 
29 



226 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 

ry where ; nor was there any board more bounti- 
fully spread for him, or any courtesy more warmly 
extended, than that which he received from the fa- 
mily at Oaklands. Old Mr. Fitzgerald was then 
master of its hereditary mansion, his eldest son just, 
verging upon manhood, and my client but a school 
boy. The acquaintance gradually grew into inti- 
macy, the intimacy ripened into friendship, and 
the day that saw the regiment depart, was to his 
generous host a day of grief and tribulation. Year 
after year of separation followed. Captain Kerr 
escaped the vicissitudes of climate and the fate of 
warfare ; and when after a tedious interval the 
chances of service sent him back to Mayo, he found 
that time had not been indolent. His ancient friend 
was in a better world, his old acquaintance in his 
father's place, and the schoolboy Charles, an hus- 
band and a parent in the little cottage of which you 
have heard already. A family affliction had es- 
tranged Colonel Fitzgerald from his paternal resi- 
dence — it was by mere chance, while attending 
the assizes' duty, he recognized in one of the offi- 
cers of the garrison the friend with whom his infan- 
cy had been familiar. You may easily guess the 
gratification he experienced — a gratification min- 
gled with no other regret than that it was so soon to 
vanish. He was about to dissipate by foreign tra- 
vel the melancholy which preyed on him, and could 
not receive his friend with personal hospitality. — 
Surprised and delighted, however, he gave him in 
a luckless hour a letter of courtesy to my client, re- 
questing from him and his brother-in-law, Mr. Kir- 
wan, every attention in their power to bestow. And 
now, gentlemen, before I introduce him to the scene 
of his criminality, you shall have even the faint un- 
finished sketch which has been given me of his cha- 



FITZGERALD v. KERR. 227 

racter. Captain Kerr of the Royals is very near 
sixty ; he is a native of Scotland ; he has been all 
his life a military officer ; in other words, to the ad- 
vantage of experience and the polish of travel, he 
adds what Lord Bacon calls that " left-handed 
wisdom," with which the thrifty genius of the Tweed 
has been said to fortify her children. Never, I am 
told, did there emigrate even from Scotland, a man 
of more ability, or of more cunning — one whose 
address was more capable of inspiring confidence, 
or whose arts were better calculated to lull suspi- 
cion : years have given him the caution of age, 
without extinguishing the sensibilities of youth ; 
nature made him romantic, navity made him fru- 
gal, and half a century has now matured him into 
a perfect model of thrifty sentiment and amorous 
senility ! I shall not depict the darker shades 
with which to me this portraiture has been deform- 
ed ; if they are true, may God forgive him : his 
own heart can alone supply the pencil with a tint 
black enough to do them justice. His first visit 
to Oaklands was in company with a Major Brown, 
and he at once assumed the air of one rather re- 
newing than commencing an acquaintance : the 
themes of other days were started — the happy 
scenes in which a parent's image mingled were all 
spread out before a filial eye, and when, too soon, 
their visitor departed, he left not behind him the 
memory of a stranger. He was as one whose 
death has been untruely rumoured — a long lost and 
recovered intimate, dear for his own deserts, and 
dearer for the memory with which he was asso- 
ciated. 

Gentlemen, I have the strongest reason for be- 
lieving that even at this instant the embryo of his 
baseness was engendering, — that even (hen. when 



228 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 

his buried friend stood as it were untombed before 
him in the person of his offspring, the poison seed 
was sown, within the shade of whose calamitous 
maturity nothing of humanity could prosper. I can- 
not toil through the romantic cant with which the 
hypocrite beguiled this credulous and unconscious 
family, but the concluding sentence of his visit is 
too remarkable to be omitted. " It is," said he, 
awaking out of a reverie of admiration, " it is all a 
paradise : there (pointing to my client), there is 
Adam — she (his future victim), she is Eve — and 
that (turning to Major Brown), that is the devil !" 
Perhaps he might have been more felicitous in the 
last exemplification. This of course seemed but a 
jest, and raised the laugh that was intended. But 
it was " poison in jest," it was an " Iago prelude," 
of which inferior crime could not fancy the conclu- 
sion. Remember it, and you will find that, jocular 
as it was, it had its meaning — that it was not, as it 
purported, the jocularity of innocence, but of that 
murderous and savage nature that prompts the In- 
dian to his odious gambol round the captive he has 
destined to the sacrifice. The intimacy thus com- 
menced, was, on the part of the defendant, strictly 
cultivated. His visits were frequent — his attentions 
indefatigable — his apparent interest beyond doubt, 
beyond description. You may have heard, my Lord, 
that there is a class of persons who often create 
their consequence in a family by contriving to be- 
come master of its secrets. An adept in this art, 
beyond all rivalry, was Captain Kerr — not only 
did he discover all that had reality, but he fabrica- 
ted whatever advanced his purposes, and the con- 
fidence he acquired was beyond all suspicion from 
the sincerity he assumed and the recollections he 
excited. Who could doubt the man who writhed 



EITZGERALD v. KERR. 229 

in agony at every wo, and gave with his tears a 
crocodile attestation to the veracity of his inven- 
tion ! From the very outset of this most natural 
though ill-omened introduction, his only object was 
discord and disunion, and in the accomplishment 
he was but too successful. How could he be oth- 
erwise ? He seized the tenderest passes of the hu- 
man heart, and ruled them with a worse than wiz- 
ard despotism. Mrs. Fitzgerald was young and 
beautiful — her husband affectionate and devoted — < 
he thirsted for the possession of the one — he de- 
termined on his enjoyment, even through the perdi- 
tion of the other. The scheme by which he effect- 
ed this — a scheme of more deliberate atrocity per- 
haps you never heard ! Parts of it I can relate, but 
there are crimes remaining, to which even if our 
law annexed a name, I could not degrade myself 
into the pollution of alluding. The commencement 
of his plan was a most ostentatious affection for 
every branch of the Fitzgerald family. The wel- 
fare of my client — his seclusion at Oaklands — the 
consequent loss of fortune and of fame, were all 
the subjects of his minute solicitude ! It was a pity 
forsooth that such talents and such virtues should 
defraud the world of their exercise— he would write 
to General Hope to advance him — he would resign 
to him his own paymastership — in short, there was 
no personal, no pecuniary sacrifice which he was 
not eager to make, out of the prodigality of his 
friendship ! The young, open, warm-hearted Fitz* 
gerald, was caught by this hypocrisy — the sun it- 
self was dark and desultory compared with the 
steady splendour of the modern Fabricius. It fol- 
lowed, gentlemen, as a matter of course, that he 
was allowed an almost unbounded confidence in 
the family. His friendly intercourse with Mrs. Kir- 



230 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 

wan — his equally friendly intercourse with Mrs. 
Fitzgerald, the husband of neither had an idea of 
misinterpreting. In the mean time the temper of 
Mrs. Fitzgerald became perceptibly embittered — 
the children, about whom she had ever been affec- 
tionately solicitous, were now neglected — the orna- 
menting of the cottage, a favourite object also, was 
totally relinquished — nor was this the worst of it. 
She became estranged from her husband — peevish 
to Mrs. Kirwan— -her manner evincing constant agi- 
tation, and her mind visibly maddened by some pow- 
erful though mysterious agency. Of this change, 
as well he might, Captain Kerr officiously proclaim- 
ed himself the discoverer — with mournful affecta- 
tion he obtruded his interference, volunteering the 
admonitions he had rendered necessary. You can 
have no idea of the dextrous duplicity with which 
he acted. To the unfortunate Mrs. Fitzgerald he 
held up the allurements with which vice- conceals 
and decorates its deformity — her beauty, her ta- 
lents, the triumphs which awaited her in the world 
of London, the injustice of concealment in her pre- 
sent solitude, were the alternate topics of his 
smooth-tongued iniquity, till at length exciting her 
vanity, and extinguishing her reason by u spells and 
drugs and accursed incantations," he juggled away 
her innocence and her virtue ! To the afflicted Mrs, 
Kirwan he was all affliction, weeping over the pro- 
pensities he affected to discover in his wretched 
victim, detailing atrocities he had himself created, 
defaming and degrading the guilty dupe of his arti- 
fices, and counselling the instant separation which 
was to afford him at once impunity and enjoyment. 
Trusted by all parties, he was true to none. Every 
day maligning Mrs. Fitzgerald to the rest of the fa- 
mily ; when it came to her ears, he cajoled her in- 



FITZGERALD v. KERR, 231 

to the belief that it was quite necessary he should 
appear her enemy, that their secret love might be 
the less suspected ! Imposing on Mrs. Kirwan the 
fabricated tale of Mrs. Fitzgerald's infamy, he pe- 
trified her virtuous mind beyond the possibility of 
explanation ! With Captain Fitzgerald he mourned 
over his woes, enjoining silence while he was stu~ 
diously augmenting them. To Colonel Fitzgerald 
he wrote letters of condolence and commiseration, 
even while the pen of his guilty correspondence 
with his sister-in-law was wet ! Do I overstate this 
treachery ? Attend not to me — listen to his own 
letters — the most conclusive illustrations of his cru- 
elty and his guilt. Thus, gentlemen, he writes to 
Col. Fitzgerald, apprising him of the result of his 
introduction. " I have been much with your fami- 
ly and friends — it is unnecessary for me to say how 
happy they have made me — I must have been very 
miserable but for their society — I have been receiv- 
ed like a brother, and owe gratitude for life to ev- 
ery soul of them. They have taught me of what 
materials an Irishman's heart is made — but alas ! I 
have barely acknowledgments to offer." Nov/ judge 
what those acknowledgments were by this extract 
from his letter to Mrs, Fitzgerald : " Your conduct 
is so guided by excessive passion, that it is impos- 
sible for me to trust you. I think the woman you 
sent means to betray us both, and nothing on earth 
can make me think the contrary— but rest assured 
I shall act with that caution which will make me 
impenetrable. I would wish to make you really 
happy, and if you cannot be as respectable as you 
have been, to approach it as near as possible. I 
never cease thinking of you and of your advantage. 
Trust but to me — obey my advice and you will gain 
your wishes : but you shall implicitly obey me, or 



232 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 

I quit you for ever !" Mark again his language to 
the Colonel : " I must confess the fate of your bro- 
ther Charles I most dreadfully lament — look to the 
fate of a man of his age, and so fine a fellow, pinned 
down in this corner of the world, unnoticed and un- 
known. Yet what is the use of every quality situ- 
ated as he is — his regrets are his own, they must 
be cutting — his prospects with so young and inex- 
perienced a family, they dare hardly be looked to, 
and to these if you add ambition and affections, can 
you look on without pitying a brother ? This earth 
indeed would be an Heaven could a good man ex- 
ecute what he proposes — the heart of many a good 
man dare not bear examination, because his actions 
and resolutions are so much at variance. Bear with 
me, Tom — the children of Col. Fitzgerald are my 
brothers and sisters, and may God so judge me as 
I feel the same kind of affection for them." Con- 
trast that, gentlemen, with the following paragraph 
to the wife of one of those very brothers, the unfor- 
tunate Charles, arranging her elopement ! " For 
the present remain where you are, but pack up all 
your clothes that you have no present occasion for 
— you can certainly procure a chest of some kind 
— if your woman is faithful she can manage the bu- 
siness — let her take that chest to Castle bar, and let 
her send it to me ; but let her take care that the 
carrier has no suspicion from whence it comes — stir 
not one step without my orders — obey me implicit- 
ly, unless you tell me that you care not for me one 
pin — in that case manage your own affairs in future, 
and see what comes of you !" Thus, gentlemen, 
did this Janus-fronted traitor, abusing Mrs. Kirwan 
by fabricated crimes — defaming Mrs. Fitzgerald by 
previous compact — confiding in all — extorting from 
all and betraying all— on the general credulity and 



FITZGERALD v. KERR. 233 

the general deception found the accomplishment of 
his odious purposes ! There was but one feature 
wanted to make his profligacy peculiar as it was 
infamous. It had the grand master touches of the 
daemon, the outlines of gigantic towering deformi- 
ty, perfidy, adultery, ingratitude, and irreligion, 
flung in the frightful energy of their combination : 
but it wanted something to make it despicable as 
well as dreadful; some petty, narrow, grovelling 
meanness that would dwarf down the terrific mag- 
nitude of itf^ crime, and make men scorn while they 
shuddered ; and it wants not this. Only think of 
him when he was thus trepanning, betraying, and 
destroying, actually endeavouring to wheedle the 
family into the settlement of an annuity on his in- 
tended prostitude. You shall have it from a wit- 
ness — you shall have it from his own letter, where 
he says to Mrs. Fitzgerald, " where is your annuity. 
I dare say you will answer me you are perfectly 
indifferent; but believe me I am not." Oh, no, no, 
no — the sednction of a mother — the calamity of a 
husband — the desolation of a household — the utter 
contempt of morals and religion — the cold-blooded 
assassination of character and of happiness, were 
as nothing compared to the expenditure of a shil- 
ling — he paused not to consider the ruin he was 
inflicting, but the expense he was incurring — a pro- 
digal in crime; a miser in remuneration — he brought 
together the licentiousness of youth and the ava- 
rice of age, calculating on the inheritance of her 
plundered infants to defray the harlotry of their 
prostituted mother ! Did you ever hear of turpitude 
like this ? Did you ever hear of such brokerage in 
iniquity ? If there is a single circumstance to rest 
upon for consolation, perhaps, however, it is in the 
exposure of his parsimony. He has shown where 
30 



234 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 

he can be made to feel, and in the very commis- 
sion of his crime, providentially betrayed the only 
accessible avenue to his punishment. Gentlemen 
of the jury, perhaps some of you are wondering 
why it is that I have so studiously abstained from 
the contemplation of my client. It is because I 
cannot think of him without the most unaffected 
anguish. It is because, possible as it is for me to 
describe his sufferings, it is not possible for you 
adequately to conceive them. You have home and 
wife and children dear to you, and cannot fancy 
the misery of their deprivation. I might as well ask 
the young mountain peasant, breathing the wild 
air of health and liberty, to feel the iron of the in- 
quisition's captive — I might as well journey to the 
convent grate, and ask religion's virgin devotee to 
paint that mother's agony of heart who finds her 
first-born dead in her embraces ! Their saddest vi- 
sions would be sorrow's mockery — to be compre- 
hended, misery must be felt, and he who feels it 
most can least describe it. What is the world 
with its vile pomps and vanities now to my poor 
client ? He sees no world except the idol he has 
lost — where'er he goes, her image follows him — she 
fills that gaze else bent on vacancy — the " highest 
noon" of fortune now would only deepen the sha- 
dow that pursues him — even " Nature's sweet re- 
storer, balmy sleep," gives him no restoration — • 
she comes upon his dream as when he saw her first 
in beauty's grace and virtue's loveliness — as when 
she heard him breathe his timid passion, and blush- 
ed the answer that blest him with its return — he 
sees her kneel — he hears her vow — religion re- 
gisters what it scarce could chasten, and there, 
even there, where paradise reveals itself before 
him, the visionary world vanishes, and wakes him 
to the hell of his reality. Who can tell the misery 



FITZGERALD v. KERR. 235 

of this ? Who can ever fancy it that has not felt it ? 
Who can fancy his soul-riving endurance while his 
foul tormetor gradually goaded him from love into 
suspicion, and from suspicion into madness ! Alas ! 

" What damned minutes tells he o'er 
Who doats yet doubts — suspects yet strongly loves." 

Fancy, if you can, the accursed process by which 
his affection was shaken — his fears aroused ; his 
jealousy excited, until at last mistaking accident 
for design, and shadows for confirmation, he sunk 
under the pressure of the human vampyre that 
crawled from his father's grave to clasp him into 
ruin ! Just imagine the catalogue of petty frauds by 
which in his own phrase he made himself " impene- 
trable" — how he invented — how he exaggerated— 
how he pledged his dupe to secrecy, while he 
blackened the character of Major Brown, with 
whom he daily associated on terms of intimacy — 
how he libelled the wife to the husband, and the 
husband to the wife — how he wound himself round 
the very heart of his victim, with every embrace 
coiling a deadlier torture, till at last he drove him 
for refuge in the woods, and almost to suicide, for 
a remedy. Now gentlemen, let us concede for a 
moment the veracity of his inventions. Suppose 
this woman to be even worse than he represented 
— why should he reveal it to the unconscious hus- 
band ? — All was happiness before his interference 
— all would be happiness still but for his murde- 
rous amity — why should he awake him from his 
dream of happiness — why should he swindle him- 
self into a reluctant confidence for the atrocious 
purpose of creating discord ? What family would 
be safe if every little exploded calumny was to be 
revived, and every forgotten ember to be fanned 
into conflagration ? Is such a character to be tole 



236 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 

rated in the community ? But even this insolent de- 
fence is wanting — you will find that self was his 
first and last and sole consideration — you will find 
that it was he who soured this woman till she ac- 
tually refused to live any longer under the roof with 
her husband and her children — you will find that 
in the midst of his counsel, his cant, and his sensi- 
bility, he himself was the profligate adulterer — you 
will find that he ruled her with a rod of iron — you 
will find that having once seduced her into crime, 
he compelled her to submit to degradation too 
loathsome for credulity, if it was not too monstrous 
for invention — you will find that his pretence for 
enforcing this disgusting ordeal was a doubt of her 
previous innocence, which it alone, he asserted, 
could eradicate — you will find her on her knees, 
weeping, almost fainting, offering oaths upon oaths 
to save herself from the pollution — and you will 
find at last, when exhausted nature could no long- 
er struggle, the foul adulterer actually perpetrating 
— but no — the genius of our country rises to rebuke 
me — I hear her say to me — " Forbear — forbear — 
I have suffered in the field — I have suffered in the 
senate — I have seen my hills bedewed with the 
blood of my children — my diadem in dust — my 
throne in ruins — but Nature still reigns upon my 
plains — the morals of my people are as yet uncon- 
quered — forbear — forbear — disclose not crimes of 
which they are unconscious ; reveal not the know- 
ledge, whose consequence is death." I will obey 
the admonition : not from my lips shall issue the 
odious crimes of this mendicinal adulterer ; not by 
my hand shall the drapery be withdrawn that 
screens this Tiberian sensuality from the public 
execration ! God of Nature ! had this been love, 
forgetting forms in the pure impetuosity of its pas- 
sions ; had it been youth, transgressing rigid law 



FITZGERALD v. KERR. 237 

and rigid morals ; had it been desire, mad in its 
guilt, and guilty even in its madness, I could have 
dropped a tear over humanity in silence ; but, when 
I see age — powerless, passionless, remorseless, ava- 
ricious age, dragging its impotence into the capa- 
bility of crime, and zesting its enjoyment by the 
contemplation of misery, my voice is not soothed 
but stilled in its utterance, and I can only pray for 
you, fathers, husbands, brothers — that the Almigh- 
ty may avert this omen from your families ! 

Gentlemen of the jury, if you feel as I do, you will 
rejoice with me that this odious case is near to its 
conclusion. You will have the facts before you— 
proof of the friendship — proof of the confidence — 
proof of the treachery, and eye-witnesses of the ac- 
tual adultery. It remans but to inquire what is the 
palliation for this abominable turpitude. Is it love ? 
Love between the tropic and the pole ! Why, he 
has a daughter older than his victim ; he has a 
wife whose grave alone should be the altar of his 
nuptials ; he is of an age when a shroud should be 
his wedding garment. T will not insult you by so 
preposterous a supposition Will he plead conni- 
vance in the husband — that fond, affectionate, de- 
voted husband ? I dare him to the experiment ; and 
if he makes it — it is not to his intimates, his friends, 
or even to the undeviating testimony of all his en- 
emies, that I shall refer you for his vindication : but 
I will call him into court, and in the altered mien, 
and mouldering form, and furrowed cheek of his 
decaying youth, I will bid you read the proofs of 
his connivance. But, gentlemen, he has not driven 
me to conjecture his palliation ; his heartless in- 
dustry has blown it through the land; and what do 
you think it is ? Oh, would to God I could call the 
whole female world to its disclosure ! Oh, if there 
be within our Island's boundaries one hapless maid 



238 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 

who lends her ear to the seducer's poison — one 
hesitating matron whose husband and whose chil- 
dren the vile adulterer devotes to desolation, let 
them now hear to what the flattery of vice will 
turn ; let them see when they have levelled the 
fair fabric of their innocence and their virtue, with 
what remorseless haste their foul destroyer will 
rush over their ruins ! Will you believe it ? That 
he who knelt to this forlorn creature, and soothed 
her vanity, adored her failings, and deified her 
faults, now justifies the pollution of her person by 
the defamation of her character ! Not a single act 
of indiscretion — not an instance, perhaps of culpa- 
ble levity in her whole life, which he has not raked 
together for the purpose of publication. Unhappy 
woman, may Heaven have pity on her ! Alas ! how 
could she expect that he who sacrificed a friend to 
his lust, would protect a mistress from his avarice ? 
But will you permit him to take shelter under this 
act of dishonourable desperation ? Can he expect 
not even sympathy, but countenance from a tribu- 
nal of high-minded honourable gentlemen ? Will 
not you say, that his thus traducing the poor fallen 
victim of his artifices, rather aggravates than di- 
minishes the original depravity? Will you not 
spurn the monster whose unnatural vice combining 
sensuality, hypocrisy, and crime, could stoop to 
save his miserable dross, by the defamation of his 
victim ? Will you not ask him by what title he 
holds this inquisition ? Is it not by that of an adulte- 
rer, a traitor, a recreant to every compact between 
man and man, and between earth and Heaven ! 

If this heartless palliation was open to all the 
world, is not he excluded from it? He her friend — 
her husband's friend — her husband's father's friend 
—her family adviser, who quaiFeft the cup of hos- 
pitality, and pledged his host in poison — he who, 



FITZGERALD v. KERR. 239 

if you can believe him, found this young and inex« 
perienced creature tottering on the brink, and, un- 
der pretence of assisting, dragged her down the 
precipice ! Will he, in the whole host of strangers, 
with whose familiarity he defames her, produce one 
this day vile enough to have followed his example j 
one out of even the skipping, dancing, worthless 
tribe, whose gallantry sunk into ingratitude, whose 
levity sublimed itself into guilt ? No, no ; " im- 
perfectly civilized" as his countrymen have called 
us, they cannot deny that there is something 
generous in our barbarism ; that we could not em- 
brace a friend while we were planning his destruc- 
tion ; that we could not sit. at his table while we 
were profaning his bed ; that we could not preach 
morality while we were perpetrating crime ; and, 
above all, if in the moment of our nature's weak- 
ness, when reason sleeps and passion triumphs, 
some confiding creature had relied upon our ho- 
nour, we could not dash her from us in her trial 
hour, and for. purse's safety turn the cold-blooded 
assassin of her character. But, my lord, I ask you 
not as a father — not as a husband — but as guardian 
of the morals of this country, ought this to be a 
justification of any adulterer? And if so, should 
it justify an adulterer under such circumstances? 
Has any man a right to scrutinize the constitution 
of every female in a family, that he may calculate 
on the possibility of her seduction? Will you in- 
stil this principle into society ? Will you instil 
this principle into the army ? Will you dissemi- 
nate such a principle of palliation ? And will you 
permit it to palliate— what ? The ruin of an house- 
hold — the sacrifice of a friend — the worse than 
murder of four children — the most inhuman perfidy 
to an host, a companion, a brother in arms ? Will 
you permit it ? I stand not upon her innocence— 



240 SPEECH; 

I demand vengeance on his most unnatural villainy. 
Suppose I concede his whole defence to him, sup- 
pose she was begrimmed and black as hell, was it 
for him to take advantage of her turpitude ? He 
a friend — a guest — a confidant — a brother soldier ! 
Will you justify him, even in any event, in trampling 
on the rights of friendship, of hospitality, of profes- 
sional fraternity, of human nature ? Will you con- 
vert the man into the monster ? Will you convert 
the soldier into the foe, from being the safeguard 
of the citizen ? Will you so defame the ..military 
character ? Will you not fear the reproaches of 
departed glory ? Will you fling the laurelled flag 
of England, scorched with the cannon flame, and 
crimsoned with the soldier's life-blood — the flag of 
countless fights, and every fight a victory— will you 
fling it athwart the couch of his accursed harlotry, 
without almost expecting that the field sepulchre 
will heave with life, and the dry bones of buried 
armies rise re-animate against the profanation ! 
No, no ; I call upon you by the character of that 
army not to contaminate its trophies — I call on you 
in the cause of nature to vindicate its dignity ; I 
call on you by your happy homes to protect them 
from profanation — I call on you by the love you 
bear your little children, not to let this christian 
Herod loose amongst the innocents. Oh ! as you 
venerate the reputation of your country — as you 
regard the happiness of your species — as you hope 
for the mercy of that all-wise and protecting God 
who has set his everlasting canon against adultery 
— banish this day by a vindictive verdict the crime 
and the criminal for ever from amongst us. 

[After a trial which lasted for seventeen hours, the jury found 
a verdict for the plaintiff of fifteen hundred pounds damages and 
6d. costs.] 



OE 

MR. PHILLIPS 

TO THE 

ELECTORS OF THE COUNTY OF 

SLIGO, 

Off DECLINING THE POLL. 



Be assured, gentlemen, it is with feelings rather 
of gratitude than of disappointment, that I withdraw 
myself from the contest, upon the present occasion. . 
I find that we cannot have a fair probability of suc- 
cess, and with every personal respect for your late 
members, and with the most heartfelt affection for 
you, I do not feel myself warranted in putting them 
to the expense, or you to the inconvenience, neces- 
sarily consequent on a contested election. The 
state of your registry, which I have but just receiv- 
ed, has compelled me to this determination. It is 
an astonishing and disgraceful fact, that such is the 
political apathy of your country, that one twentieth 
of its freeholders are not registered. The only pri- 
vilege which the people have left, is the elective 
franchise ; and even this, it seems, they have not 
the spirit to exercise. After this, what right has Ire- 
land to complain, if, either on the window tax ques- 
tion, or any other question, her representatives will 
not give themselves even the trouble of crossing 
the channel? If you are contented to submit to this 
31 



242 ADDRESS TO THE ELECTORS 

degradation, it is not for me to murmur, capable as 
I am, by my own conduct, of redeeming myself in- 
dividually. As I hear, however, that some of your 
news-room wiseacres have taken offence at an ex- 
pression in my address, and as every man who puts 
himself politically forward, should be able to give a 
reason for " the faith that is in him," you shall have 
mine freely and fearlessly. The declaration was, 
that if the next parliament be like the last, we may 
write the epitaph of the British constitution. I re- 
peat it now, and I further add, that it is quite im- 
possible things can go on, unless there be some 
change, either in the members we return to that 
house, or in the constitution of that house itself. — - 
Are you aware, that of what is called the house of 
commons, 82 peers nominate 300, and 123 com- 
moners nominate 187; and thus you have, out of 
658 members, 487 actually nominated by 205 con- 
stituents, and this they call the representation of 
the people ! If this continues, is there any use in elec- 
tions — is there any use in petitioning, where hired 
majorities can stifle the one, and a borough mon* 
gering influence can defeat the other ? Does any 
man propose a reformation of the system ? He is 
immediately denounced as a visionary, or worse. 
So it was in England, with Fox and Sheridan, and 
the consequence was, she lost America. So it was 
amongst yourselves, with Grattan and with Flood, 
and the consequence was, those who bought you, 
sold you. We were bartered into a province, and 
but the other day, in the imperial parliament, upon 
a vital question, 75 of your members left you, at the 
mercy of a puppet majority, who not only riveted 
your chain, but rebuked you for clanking it ! This 
is ihe way in which I wish to meet the question — 
not by empty declamation, but by stubborn facts — 



OF THE COUNTY OF SLIGO. 243 

facts which are now recorded to our shame, upon 
the adamant of history — look to the conduct of the 
very last parliament, in almost every instance the 
echo of the minister, and the justification of the 
malcontent — conduct which, I will demonstrate, has 
done more to disgrace us abroad, and to enslave 
us at home, than mere unequivocal, unblushing 
despotism ever could have effected. Look to that 
conduct. After a protracted war, unparalleled in 
its duration, and unprovoked in its origin, during 
which, money enough was spent to purchase, and 
blood enough shed to insulate, the continent — dur- 
ring which we alternately fought and subsidized 
every faithless despot — now libelling the worthless 
— now lauding the magnanimous Alexander — to- 
day, in the field with temporizing Austria — to-mor- 
row, bribing the convenient Prussia — now smiling 
upon Poland's plunder — now establishing the Spa- 
nish inquisition — now at Amiens, acknowledging 
the French consul — now at Waterloo, cheering the 
blood-cry of legitimacy. After this base abandon- 
ment of public principle — this barbarous gambling 
with the nation's happiness — we found ourselves at 
last, consistent in nothing but our inconsistencies, 
seated in the legitimate congress of Vienna, be- 
tween the Northern Autocrat and a Serjeant of Na- 
poleon ! Was not this a rare, a natural consumma- 
tion, well worthy the fraudful leagues and bloody 
infractions which had diversified the contest — well 
worth the orphanage and the widowhood, which 
had shadowed England with wo, and the frantic ex- 
penditure which has almost beggared her withdebt? 
This has been the consequence, and what, do you 
remember, was the motive to this agression ? — Was 
it the establishment of human liberty — was it the 
advance of human morals — was it the vindication 



244 Address of the electors 

of national character — was it even any high toned 
and heroic impulse which flung a factitious glory 
over the warrior's progress, and gave the battle 
horrors a visionary justification ? Far from it. It 
was the most unjustifiable motive that ever un- 
sheathed the British sword — the most unconstitu- 
tional that ever stained the British annals. It was 
a bare faced interference with a foreign country, 
in the choice of its own government — a direct in- 
fraction of the very principle upon which England 
founded her glorious revolution. It was a legisla- 
tive denunciation of the doctrines acted on in 1 688, 
proclaiming James a martyr, and William an usur- 
per, and the people no better than rebellious regi- 
cides ! This war, however, of course, had its pre- 
tences. Its first, was the French republic — driven 
from this, its next was peace and retribution. In- 
demnity and security was the Premier's war-whoop 
— and what has been our indemnity ? The mas- 
sacre of our population — the debasement of our 
character — the accumulation of debt beyond all 
spendthrift precedent — famine in our streets and 
fever in our houses — the establishment in Europe 
of a military despotism, which leaves the very name 
of freedom a mockery — the payment of war taxes 
in time of peace, scarcely leaving it doubtful whe- 
ther the burdens were imposed to support the war, 
or the war commenced to justify the taxes — the 
suspension of our constitution, if we offer to re- 
monstrate. This has been our dearly bought in- 
demnity ! And what is our security ? — an holy alli- 
ance, forsooth ! A league of kings, unhallowed and 
mysterious, bound by compacts which must not be 
known, and fenced by bayonets, which cannot be 
resisted ! This is our security ! The breath of prin- 
ces—the caprice of an hydra, now fatigued over 



OF THE COUNTY OF SLIGO. 245 

the recent banquet, and only waiting for its hungry 
hour again to glisten in ungorged rapacity ! Alas ? 
what tenure have we even of such an alliance ! Is 
there a member of that punic horde who has not 
been in turn the foe of his ally, and the ally of his 
foe, and do you expect they will preserve that faith 
towards us which they have not been able to pre- 
serve towards one another? Is there a man of them 
who did not bow to Napoleon, and confess his title, 
and court his confederation, and then denounce 
him as an illegitimate usurper ? And was there 
among them, afterwards, a consistent renegade to 
deny the hand of fraternity to Bernadotte, raised 
from the ranks of that very Napoleon ? Perhaps 
this instability of political principle may be coun- 
teracted by a personal attachment. Let Prussia 
acknowledge it when she looks at Alexander, and 
remember the perfidious abandonment of Tilsit. 
Let Sweden answ r erit when she thinks of Finland. 
Let Poland and Saxony acknowledge it to Prussia. 
Let Genoa speak. Let extinguished Venice pro- 
claim it for Austria. Let Austria herself avouch it 
for France, and then turn to her immolated daugh- 
ter — immolated with a worse than Jewish cruelty, 
not to the god of battles, but to the infernal Mo- 
loch of self interest. I speak not now of that devo- 
ted France, bending over her violated charter, and 
with tears of blood expiating the credulity that put 
its faith in princes— But I speak of England, of the 
parliament of England, consenting to the plunder, 
smiling on the partition, squandering the resources 
of a generous and gallant people — fleets, and ar- 
mies, and generations, and for what? To forward 
the fraud of the continental intriguer— to establish 
the inquisition, and torture and Ferdinand — for the 
Bourbon in France, and the Bourbon in Spain, and 



246 ADDRESS TO THE ELECTORS 

the Bourbon in Naples — the rooted hereditary en- 
emies of the country, for the obsolete blasphemy 
of divine right, dug up from its tomb, and re-baptis- 
ed legitimacy — for the restoration of those sanguina- 
ry frauds upon human freedom, against which our 
sages wrote, and our warriours fought, and our 
revolution thundered ! Shades of Locke and of 
Milton, were these your doctrines ? — Blood of the 
Russells and the Hampdens, has this been your le- 
gacy ? People of England, is it for this that your 
orphans and your widows mourn in silent resigna- 
tion — that your poor houses are choaked with a fa- 
mished population ? Let those men answer it, who, 
in the name of parliament, ratified the treaties, vo- 
ted the supplies, advanced the subsidies, and 
cheered the minister, just reeking from that hope- 
ful congress, where legitimacy, drunk with human 
blood, flung its sword into the scale against which 
the liberties of a sword were balanced. 

I have just touched their conduct, as to our fo- 
reign relations. Has it been compensated by their 
domestic policy ? As far as in them lay, they have 
virtually annihilated the British constitution, and 
paved the way to a military despotism. They level- 
led, one by one, every barrier which the wisdom 
of ages raised around the liberties of the people. 
They suspended the habeas corpus act. Fathers 
of families were dragged from their homes, loaded 
with irons; subjected to disease; stamped with 
ignominy ; their helpless children turned adrift to 
beggary and prostitution ; and then as they had 
been imprisoned without crime, so were they re- 
leased without even the decency of accusation. — 
They then passed the infamous gagging act; 
public meetings were forbidden — the power of dis- 
cussion was withheld, the right of petition was in 



OF THE COUNTY OF SLIGO. 247 

fact annihilated. It was a natural consequence of 
the former measure — when innocence is no exemp- 
tion from punishment the privilege of complaint is 
but a mockery. They then countenanced lord 
Sidmouth's circular — a magistracy, perhaps igno- 
rant, perhaps corrupt, perhaps both — we, at least, 
can fancy such a magistracy were invested with an 
arbitrary construction of the libel act, upon which 
our most learned lawyers have differed in opinion. 
They then sanctioned the oppressive alien act, 
which flung back into the jaws of death the patriot 
victims of despotic power, and wrested from En- 
gland her imprescriptible privilege of giving refuge 
to virtuous destitution. They then scouted the re- 
peal of the septennial act, an act which they were 
never delegated the power to pass, and upon the 
principle of which they might as well make the 
representation an hair-loom in their families. I will 
not further recapitulate their conduct, but I will 
remind you, that the situation of the captive under 
these measures was solitary imprisonment. Against 
all law or precedent, even magistrates were for- 
bidden to visit them — one man died — another, Mr. 
Ogden, the subject of merriment, has survived only 
to protracted agony. I pass from the subject, it is 
too painful to dwell upon. What was the pretence 
for this temporary despotism? A plot! a plot, 
hatched by two apothecaries and a lame cobbler — 
the tower was to be stormed, and the bank plun- 
dered, and London garrisoned by a buckram army, 
whose treasury was a cypher — whose camp equip- 
age was a blanket — whose ammunition chest was 
an old stocking, and whose park of artillery con- 
sisted of the mortar which most rebelliously out- 
lived the wreck of the apothecaries! Those peo- 
ple were arraigned upon the evidence of a villain 



248 ADDRESS TO THE ELECTORS 

all leprous with crimes, whom the event proved to 
be the only convict. A wretch, who when he sew 
the predestined victim, and looked at the high 
priest, filled the mind of Ireland with terrific recol- 
lections, recalling instinctively that reign of blood 
when we too had our Castles and our Oliver — when 
the bribed and perjured cannibal went forth indu- 
cing the crime that he might betray the criminal — 
when neither jouth, nor age, nor sex, nor innocence 
could conciliate, or avert those coiners of human 
blood— those vam pyres of the grave — those mon- 
sters without a name, before whose path the fresh- 
ness of humanity withered, in whose accursed 
minds, conscience was only a commercial instru- 
ment — and friendship, treachery, and gratitude, 
murder. Who turned this land into one scene of 
hell, in which the pangs and the convulsions of the 
sufferer only stimulated the ferocious exultation of 
their tormentors. Who crept into the family of the 
nearest and dearest, courting the board and pledg- 
ing the cup, and fondling the infant, even at the ve- 
ry moment when they were waylaying the unguard- 
ed confidence of the parent to devote him to the 
scaffold, and to rise upon his tomb ! — I am shocked 
to ask, did the late parliament shield the employ- 
ment of those ferocious and commercial cannibals ? 
If they did not, what was the meaning of the in- 
demnity bill ?— What difference is there between 
the perpetrator of a deed and the minister who in- 
stigates it, and the parliament who protects it ? I 
can see none — I see them chained together in one 
community of infliction, and whether I touch the 
highest or the lowest link, the thrill of horror is 
the same in its communication. Gentlemen, I say 
again, if these things continue, we may bid farewell 
for ever to our liberties. Of what use are all our 



OF THE COUNTY OF SLIGO. 249 

visionary safeguards— of what use is the responsi- 
bility of ministers, if it is to depend upon the will 
of a parliament, whose majority is the creature of 
those ministers ? What avails our so celebrated 
laws, if they are to be thus capriciously suspend- 
ed ? What is our constitution with its theoretic 
blessings, but a practical and splendid mockery, 
if its noblest ornaments are to be effaced at will 
and its strength turned into an engine of oppres- 
sion ? Oh ! it is worse than fatuity in us to deceive 
ourselves. The tower in which we trusted turns 
out at last to be but a goodly vision ; fair indeed 
to the eye, but as false as it is fair, falling to pieces 
at the wand of the minister, when the forlorn peo- 
ple approach it for protection. 

Such, gentlemen, are my reasons for the asser- 
tion I have made ; their inferences may be, perhaps, 
doubted by many, who can never see any thing, 
even problematical, in the basest conduct of " the 
powers that be," — their existence, however, at least, 
is undeniable. 

In taking my leave of you, for the present, let 
me express my gratitude to the prompt, manly, and 
decided friends, who so independently proffered 
me, not only their interest, but their purses, and 
particularly to the professional friends, who, in ad- 
dition volunteered their services. 

The period is approaching when all may be ne- 
cessary ; in the mean time, let every independent 
man in the country, register his freehold, and await 
with confidence the hour of his liberation. 

I am, gentlemen, with gratitude and respect, 
Your fellow countryman, 

CHARLES PHILLIPS, 

Dublin, June 21, 1818. 
32 






OE 

MR. PHILLIPS, 

AT A PUBLIC DINNER GIVEN TO 

Gen. DEVEREUX, 
AT DUBLIN. 



My Lord, and Gentlemen, 

I sincerely thank you ; to be remembered when 
my countrymen are celebrating the cause of free- 
dom and humanity, cannot fail to be grateful — to 
be so remembered when a personal and valu- 
ed friend is the object of the celebration, carries 
with it a double satisfaction ; and you will allow 
me to say, that if any thing could enhance the plea- 
sure of such feelings, it is the consciousness that 
our meeting can give offence to no one. Topics 
have too often risen up amongst us, where the best 
feelings were painfully at variance ; where silence 
w r ould have been guilt, and utterance was misery. 
But, surely here, at length, is an occasion where 
neither sect or party are opposed — where every 
man in the country may clasp his brother by the 
hand, and feel and boast the most electric commu- 
nication. To unmanacle the slave — to unsceptre 
the despot — to erect an altar on the inquisition's 
grave — to raise a people to the attitude of freedom 
— to found the temples of science and of commerce 
— to create a constitution, beneath whose ample 



SPEECH. 251 

arch every human creature, no matter what his 
sect, his colour or his clime, may stand sublime in 
the dignity of manhood — these are the glorious ob- 
jects of this enterprize, and the soul must be im- 
bruted, and the heart must be ossified, which does 
not glow with the ennobling sympathy. Where is 
the slave so abject as to deny it ? Where is the 
statesman who can rise from the page of Spanish 
South America, and affect to commiserate the fall 
of Spain ? Her tyranny, even from its cradle to its 
decline, has been the indelible disgrace of Christi- 
anity, and of Europe — it was born in fraud, baptized 
in blood, and reared by rapine — it blasphemed all 
that was holy — it cankered all that was happy — 
the most simple habits, the most sacred institutions, 
the most endeared and inoffensive customs, esca- 
ped not inviolate, the accursed invader — the hearth, 
the throne, the altar, lay confounded in one com- 
mon ruin ; and when the innocent children of the 
sun confided for a moment in the christian's pro- 
mise, what ! oh, shame to Spain ! oh, horror to 
Christianity ! oh ! eternal stigma on the name of 
Europe ! what did they behold ? — the plunder of 
their fortunes, the desolation of their homes, the 
ashes of their cities ; their children murdered with- 
out distinction of sex ; the ministers of their faith 
expiring amid tortures ; the person of their Ynca, 
their loved, sacred, the heroic Ynca, quivering in 
death upon a burning furnace ; and the most natu- 
ral, and most excusable of all idolatries, their con- 
secrated sunbeam, clouded by the murky smoke of 
an inquisition, streaming with human gore, and 
raised upon the ruins of all that they held holy ! 
These were the feats of Spain, in South America! 
This is the fiery and demoniac sway for which an 
execrable tyrant solicits British neutrality ! Ireland^ 



252 SPEECH AT A DINNER 

at least, has given an answer. An armed legion of 
her chosen youth bears it at this hour in thunder 
on the waters, iand the sails are swelling for their 
brave companions. I care not if this tyranny was 
ten thousand times more crafty, more vigilant, more 
ferocious, than it is ; when a people will it their 
liberation is inevitable; their inflictions will be 
converted into the instruments of freedom ; they 
will write its charter even in the blood of their 
shrines ; they will turn their chains into the wea- 
pons of their emancipation. If it were possible still 
more to animate them, let them only think on the 
tyrant they have to combat — that odious concen- 
tration of qualities, at once the most opposite, and 
the most contemptible ; timid and sanguinary ; ef- 
feminate and ferocious ; impious and superstitious ; 
now embroidering a petticoat, now imprisoning an 
hero ; to-day kneeling to a God of mercy ; to-mor- 
row lighting the hell of inquisition ; at noon embra- 
cing his ministerial pander ; at midnight starting 
from a guilty dream, to fulminate his banishment ; 
the alternate victim of his fury and his fears ; faith- 
ful to an infidel priestcraft, which excites his ter- 
rors, and fattens on his crimes, and affects to wor- 
ship the anointed slave as he trembles, enthroned 
on the bones of his benefactors. Who can sympa- 
thise with such a monster ? Who can see, unmoved, 
a mighty empire writhing in the embraces of thjs 
human Boa ? My very heart grows faint within me 
when I think how many thousands of my gallant 
countrymen have fallen to crown him with that en- 
sanguined diadem ; when I think that genius wrote, 
and eloquence spoke, and valour fought, and fidel- 
ity died for him, while he was tasting the bitterness 
of captivity, and that his ungrateful restoration has 
literally withered his realm into a desert, where 



GIVEN TO GEN. DEVEREUX. 253 

the widow and orphan weep his sway, and the 
sceptre waves, not to govern, but to crush ! Never, 
my lord, never, whether we contemplate the good 
they have to achieve, the evil they have to over- 
come, or the wrongs they have to avenge ; never 
did warriors march in a more sacred contest. Their 
success may be uncertain, but it is not uncertain 
that every age and clime will bless their memories, 
for their sword is garlanded with freedom's flowers, 
and patriotism gives them an immortal bloom, and 
piety breathes on them an undying fragrance. Let 
the tyrant menace, and the hireling bark ; wherev- 
er Christianity kneels or freedom breathes, their 
deeds shall be recorded, and when their honoured 
dust is gathered to its fathers, millions they have 
redeemed will be their mourners, and an emanci- 
pated hemisphere their enduring monument. Go, 
then soldier of Ireland, (turning to Gen. Devcreux,) 

" Go where glory waits thee ;" 

Montezuma's spirit, from his bed of coals, through 
the mist of ages, calls to you for vengeance ; the 
patriot Cortes, in their dungeon vaults, invoke 
your retribution ; the graves of your brave coun- 
trymen, trampled by tyranny, where they died for 
freedom, are clamorous for revenge ! Go, plant 
the banner of green on the summit of the Andes. 
May victory guide, and mercy ever follow it ; if 
you should triumph, the consummation will be li- 
berty, and in such a contest should you even per- 
ish, it will be as martyrs perish, in the blaze of your 
own glory. Yes, you shall sink like the. sun of the 
Peruvian whom you will seek to liberate ; mid the 
worship of a people, and the tears of a world, and 
you will rise reanimate, refulgent, and immortal ! 



SIKEOTMtt 



OE 

MR. PHILLIPS 

DELIVERED AT CHELTENHAM, (ENGLAND) ON THE ?TH OCT. 181% 

AT THE FOURTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE 
GLOUCESTER MISSIONARY SOCIETY. 



JWr. Chairman, 

After the eloquence with which so many gen- 
tlemen have gratified and delighted this most re- 
spectable assembly, and after the almost inspired 
address of one of them, I feel almost ashamed of 
having acceded to the wishes of the committee by 
proposing the resolution which I have the honour 
to submit. I should apologize, sir, for even the few 
moments intrusion which I mean to make upon this 
meeting, did I not feel that I had no right to con- 
sider myself as quite a stranger ; did I not feel that 
the subject unites us all into one great social fami- 
ly, and gives to the merest sojourner the claim of 
a brother and a friend. At a time like this, perhaps, 
when the infidel is abroad, and the atheist and dis- 
believer triumph in their blasphemy, it behoves 
the humblest christian to range himself beneath the 
banners of his faith, and attest, even by his mar- 
tyrdom, the sincerity of his allegiance. When I 
consider thesource from whence Christianity sprung 



SPEECH. 255 

—the humility of its origin — the poverty of its dis- 
ciples — the miracles of its creation — the mighty 
sway it has acquired, not only over the civilized 
world, but which your missions are hourly extend- 
ing over lawless, mindless, and imbruted regions — 
I own the awful presence of the Godhead — nothing 
less than a Divinity could have done it ! The pow- 
ers, the prejudices, the superstition of the earth, 
were all in arms against it ; it had nor sword nor 
sceptre — its founder was in rags — its apostles were 
lowly fishermen — its inspired prophets, lowly and 
uneducated — its cradle was a manger — its home a 
dungeon — its earthly diadem a crown of thorns ! 
And yet, forth it went — that lowly, humble, perse- 
cuted spirit — and the idols of the heathen fell ; and 
the thrones of the mighty trembled ; and paganism 
saw her peasants and her princes kneel down and 
worship the unarmed Conqueror ! If this be not 
the work of the Divinity, then I yield to the reptile 
ambition of the atheist. I see no God above — I see 
no government below ; and I yield my conscious- 
ness of an immortal soul to his boasted fraternity- 
with the worm that perishes ! But, sir, even when 
I thus concede to him the divine origin of our chris- 
tian faith, I arrest him upon worldly principles — I 
desire him to produce, from all the wisdom of the 
earth, so pure a system of practical morality — a 
code of ethics more sublime in its conception — 
more simple in its means — more happy and more 
powerful in its operation : and, if he cannot do so, 
I then say to him, Oh -! in the name of your own 
darling policy, filch not its guide from youth, its 
shield from manhood, and its crutch from age! 
Though the light I follow may lead me astray, still 
I think it is light from Heaven ! The good, and great, 
and wise, are my companions— my delightful hope 



256 SPEECH AT CHELTENHAM BEFORE 

is harmless, if not holy ; and wake me not to a dis- 
appointment, which in your tomb of annihilation, I 
shall not taste hereafter ! To propagate the sacred 
creed — to teach the ignorant — to enrich the poor — 
to illumine this world with the splendours of the 
next — to make men happy, you have never seen — 
and to redeem millions you can never know — you 
have sent your hallowed missionaries forward; 
and never did an holier vision rise, than that of 
this celestial, glorious embassy. Methinks I see 
the band of willing exiles bidding farewell, perhaps 
forever, to their native country ; — foregoing home, 
and friends, and luxury — to tempt the savage sea, 
or men more savage than the raging element — to 
dare the polar tempest, and the tropic fire, and of- 
ten doomed by the forfeit of their lives to give their 
precepts a proof and an expiation. It is quite de- 
lightful to read over their reports, and see the bless- 
ed product of their labours. They leave no clime 
unvisited, no peril unencountered. In the South 
Sea Islands they found the population almost erad- 
icated by the murders of idolatry. " It was God 
Almighty," says the royal convert of Otaheite, 
•' who sent your mission to the remainder of my peo- 
ple /" I do not wish to shock your christian ears 
with the cruelties from which you have redeemed 
these islands. Will you believe it, that they had 
been educated in such cannibal ferocity, as to ex- 
cavate the earth, and form an oven of burning 
stones, into which they literally threw their living 
infants, and gorged their infernal appetites with the 
flesh ! Will you believe it, that they thought mur- 
der grateful to the God of Mercy ! — and the blood 
of his creatures as their best libation ! In nine of 
these islands those abominations are extinct — in- 
fanticide is abolished — their prisoners are exchang- 



THE MISSIONARY SOCIETY. 25v 

ed — society is now cemented by the bond of bro- 
therhood, and the accursed shrines that streamed 
with human gore, and blazed with human unction, 
now echo the songs of peace and the sweet strains 
of piety. In India, too, where Providence, for some 
special purpose, permits these little insular specks 
to hold above one hundred millions in subjection — 
phenomena scarcely to be paralleled in history — 
the spell of Brahma is dissolving — the chains of 
Caste ar<a falling off— the wheels of Juggernaut are 
scarce ensanguined — the horrid custom of self-im- 
molation is daily disappearing — and the sacred 
stream of Jordan mingles with the Ganges. Even 
the rude soldier, 'mid the din of arms, and the li- 
cense of the camp, " makes (says our missionary) 
the Bible the inmate of his knapsack,and the com- 
panion of his pillow." Such has been the success 
of your missions in that country, that one of your 
own judges has publicly avowed, that those who 
left India some years ago can form no just idea of 
what now exists there. Turn ft !-es« lands to 
that of Africa, a name I now can meruit 'vithout 
horror. In sixteen of their towns and many of their 
Islands, we see the sun of Christianity arising, and 
as it rises, the whole spectral train of superstition 
vanishing in air. Agriculture and civilization are 
busy in the desert, and the poor Hottentot kneel- 
ing at the altar, implores his God to remember not 
the slave trade. If any thing, sir, could add to the 
satisfaction that I feel, it is the consciousness that 
knowledge and Christianity are advancing, hand in 
hand, and that wherever I see your missionaries 
journeying, I see schools rising up, as it were, the 
landmark of their progress. And who can tell what 
the consequences of this may be in after ages ? 
Who can tell whether those remote regions may 
33 



258 SPEECH AT CHELTENHAM BEFORE 

not, hereafter, become the rivals of European im- 
provement ? Who shall place a ban upon the in- 
tellect derived from the Almighty ? Who shall say 
that the future poet shall not fascinate the wilds, and 
that the philosopher and the statesman shall not 
repose together beneath the shadow of their palm 
trees ? This may be visionary, but surely, in a mo- 
ral point of view, the advantages of education are 
not visionary. [A long and continued burst of applause 
followed this passage, and prevented the reporter from de- 
tailing some most excellent remarks on the advantages of 
the cultivation of the human mind.] These, sir — the 
propagation of the gospel — the advancement of 
science and industry — the perfection of the arts — 
the diffusion of knowledge — the happiness of man- 
kind here and hereafter — these are the blessed ob- 
jects of your missionaries, and, compared with these, 
all human ambition sinks into the dust : the ensan- 
guined chariot of the conqueror pauses — the scep- 
tre falls from the imperial grasp — the blossom with- 
ers even in the patriot's garland. But deeds like 
these require no panegyric — in the words of that 
dear friend whose name can never die — [In this al- 
lusion to his lamented friend, Curran, Mr. Phillips'* feel- 
ings were evidently much affected] — " They are record- 
ed in the heart from whence they sprung, and in 
the hour of adverse vicissitude, if ever it should ar- 
rive, sweet will be the odour of their memory, and 
precious the balm of their consolation." 

Before I sit down, sir, I must take the liberty of 
saying that the principal objection which I have 
heard raised against your institution is with me the 
principal motive of my admiration — I allude, sir, to 
the diffusive principles on which it is founded. / 
have seen too much, sir, of sectarian bigotry — as a man, 
I abhor it — as a christian, I blush at it — it is not 



THE MISSIONARY SOCIETY, 259 

only degrading to the religion that employs even 
the shadow of intolerance, but it is an impious des- 
potism in the government that countenances it. — 
These are my opinions, and I will not suppress 
them. Our religion has its various denominations, 
but they are struggling to the same mansion, though 
by different avenues, and when I meet them on their 
way — I care not whether they be protestant or 
presbyterian, dissenter or catholic, I know them as 
christians, and I will embrace them as my brethren, 
I hail, then, the foundation of such a society as 
this — I hail it, in many respects, as an happy omen 
— I hail it as an augury of that coming day when 
the bright bow of Christianity, commencing in the 
Heavens and encompassing the earth, shall include 
the children of every clime and colour beneath the 
arch of its promise and the glory of its protection. 
Sir, Ithank this meeting for the more than courtesy 
with which it has received me, and I feel great 
pleasure in proposing this resolution for their 
adoption. 



MR. PHILLIPS, 

DELIVERED BEFORE THE BRITISH AND FOREIGN 
AUXILIARY BIBLE SOCIETY, 

NOVEMBER 5, 1819. 



May it please your Lordship— Ladies and Gentlemen, 

Although I have not had the honour of being 
selected to propose any resolution, yet, as a native 
of that country to which your report alludes, I beg 
leave to say a few words, as expressive of the opin- 
ions of a great body of my countrymen. Indeed, my 
Lord, when we see the omens which every day 
produces — when we see blasphemy openly avowed 
— when we see the Scriptures audaciously ridicul- 
ed — when in this christian monarchy the den of the 
republican and the deist yawns for the unwary in 
your most public thoroughfares — when marts are 
ostentatiously opened where the poison may be 
purchased, whose subtle venom enters the very 
soul — when infidelity has become an article of com- 
merce, and man's perdition may be cheapened at 
the stall of every pedlar, no friend of society should 
continue silent. It is no longer a question of po- 
litical privilege — of sectarian controversy — of theo- 



SPEECH. 261 

logical discussion ; it is become a question whe- 
ther Christianity itself shall stand, or whether we 
shall let go the firm anchor of our faith, and drift 
without chart, or helm, or compass, into the shore- 
less ocean of impiety and blood. I despise as much 
as any man the whine of bigotry : I will go as far 
as any man for rational liberty ; but I will not de- 
pose my God to deify the infidel, or tear in pieces 
the charter of the state, and group for a constitu- 
tion amongst the murky pigeon holes of every creed- 
less, lawless, intoxicated regicide. When I saw the 
other day, my Lord, the chief bacchanal of their 
orgies — the man with whom the Apostles were 
cheats, and the Prophets liars, and Jesus an impos- 
ter, on his trial in Guildhall, withering hour after 
hour with the most horrid blasphemies, surrounded 
hy the votaries of every sect, and the heads of ev- 
ery faith, the christian Archbishop, the Jewish 
Rabbi, the men most eminent for their piety, and 
their learning, whom he had purposely called to 
hear his infidel ridicule of all they reverenced ; 
when I saw him raise the Holy Bible in one hand, 
and the Age of Reason in the other — as it were, 
confronting the Almighty with a rebel fiend till the 
pious Judge grew pale, and the patient jury inter- 
posed, and the self convicted wretch himself, after 
having raved away all his original impiety, was redu- 
ced himself into a mere machine for the re-produc- 
tion of the ribald blasphemy of others, I could not 
help exclaiming " Unfortunate man, if all your im- 
practicable madness could be realized, what would 
you give us in exchange for our establishments ? 
What would you substitute for that august tribunal ? 
For whom would you displace that independent 
judge, and that impartial jury ? Or would you real- 
ly burn the Gospel, and erase the statutes, for the 



£62 SPEECH BEFORE THE BRITISH 

dreadful equivalent of the crucifix and the guillo- 
tine ? Indeed, if I was asked for a practical pane- 
gyric on our constitution, I would adduce the very 
trial of that criminal ; and if the legal annals of any 
country upon earth furnish an instance, not merely 
of such justice, but of such patience, such forbear- 
ance, such almost culpable indulgence, I will con- 
cede to him the triumph. I hope, too, in what I say, 
I shall not be considered as forsaking that illustri- 
ous example. I hope I am above an insult on any 
man in his situation ; perhaps, had I the power, I 
would follow the example further than I ought ; 
perhaps I would even humble him into an evidence 
of the very spirit he spurned, and as our creed was 
reviled in his person, and vindicated in his convic- 
tion, so I would give it its noblest triumph in his 
sentence, and merely consign him to the punish- 
ment of its mercy. 

But, indeed, my Lord, the fate of that half infi- 
del, half trading martyr, matters very little in com- 
parison of that of the thousands he has corrupted. 
He has literally disseminated a mortal plague, 
against which even the nation's quarantine can 
scarce avail us. It has poisoned the fresh blood of 
infancy, it has disheartened the last hope of age ; 
if his own account of its circulation be correct, hun- 
dreds of thousands must be this instant tainted with 
the infectious venom, whose sting dies not with the 
destruction of the body. Imagine not, because the 
pestilence smites not at once, that its fatality is the 
less certain ; imagine not, because the lower or- 
ders are the earliest victims, that the more eleva- 
ted will not suffer in their turn ; the most mortal 
chillness begins at the extremities ; and you may 
depend upon it, nothing but time and apathy are 
wanting to change this healthful land into a char- 



AUXILIARY BIBLE SOCIETY. 263 

nel house, where murder, anarchy, and prostitution, 
and the whole hell-brood of infidelity, will quaff 
the heart's blood of the consecrated and the noble, 
My Lord, I am the more indignant at these designs, 
because they are sought to be concealed in the 
disguise of liberty. It is the duty of every real 
friend to* liberty to tear her mask from the fiend 
who has usurped it. No, no ; this is not our island 
goddess, bearing the mountain freshness on her 
cheek, and scattering the valley's bounty from her 
hand, known by the lights that herald her fair pre- 
sence, the peaceful virtues that attend her path, 
and the long blaze of glory that lingers in her train. 
It is a daemon, speaking fair indeed, tempting our 
faith with airy hopes and visionary realm; but 
even within the folding of its mantle hiding the 
bloody symbol of its purpose. Hear not its sophis- 
try; guard your child against it; it draws round your 
homes the consecrated circle which it dare not en- 
ter: you will find an amulet in the religion of your 
country : it is the great mound raised by the Al- 
mighty for the protection of humanity — it stands be- 
tween you and the lava of human passions — and oh ! 
believe me, if you stand tamely by while it is base- 
ly undermined, that fiery deluge will roll on, before 
which, all that you hold dear, or venerable, or sa- 
cred, will wither into ashes. Believe no one who 
tells you that the friends of freedom are now, or 
ever were, the enemies of religion. They know too 
well, that rebellion against God could not prove 
the basis of government for man, and that the proud- 
est structure impiety can raise, is but the Babel 
monument of impotence and its pride mocking the 
builders with a moment's strength, and the cover- 
ing them with inevitable confusion, 



264 SPEECH BEFORE THE BRITISH 

Do you want an example ? Only look to France ; 
the microscopic vision of your rabble blasphemers 
has not sight enough to contemplate the mighty 
minds which commenced her revolution. The wit, 
the sage, the orator, the hero, the whole family of 
genius furnished forth treasures, and gave them no- 
bly to the nation's exigence ; they had great pro- 
vocation ; they had a glorious cause : they had all 
that human potency could give them. But they re- 
lied too much on this human potency, they abjur- 
ed their God ; and as a natural consequence, they 
murdered their king. They called their polluted 
deities from the brothel, and the fall of the idol ex- 
tinguished the flame of the altar. They crowded 
the scaffold with all their country held of genius or 
virtue ; and when the peerage and the prelacy 
were exhausted, the mob-executioner of to-day be- 
came the mob victim of to-morrow : no sex was 
spared — no age respected — no suffering pitied; 
and all this they did in the sacred name of liberty, 
though, in the deluge of human blood, they left not 
a mountain-top for the ark of liberty to rest on. 
But Providence was neither " dead nor sleeping ;" 
it mattered not that for a moment their impiety 
seemed to prosper — that victory panted after their 
ensanguined banners ; — that as their insatiate eagle 
soared against the sun, he seemed but to replume 
his wings, and to renew his vision : it was only for 
a moment : and you see at last in the very banquet 
of their triumph the Almighty's vengeance blazed 
upon the wall, and their diadem fell from the brow 
of the idolator. My Lord, I will not abjure the al- 
tar, the throne, and the constitution, for the bloody 
tinsel of this revolutionary pantomime. I prefer my 
God even to the impious democracy of their pan- 
theon. I will not desert my king even for the polit- 



AUXILIARY BIBLE SOCIETY. 265 

ical equality of their pandemonium. I must see some 
better authority than the Fleet-street temple before 
I forego the principles which I imbibed in my youth, 
and to which I look forward as the consolation of 
my age ; those all-protecting principles which at 
once guard and consecrate and sweeten the social 
intercourse ; which give life, happiness and death, 
hope ; which constitute man's purity, his best pro- 
tection — placing the infant's cradle and female's 
beneath the sacred shelter of the national morality. 
Neither Mr. Paine, nor Mr. Palmer, nor all the 
venom breathing brood, shall swindle from me the 
book where I have learned these precepts. In de- 
spite of all the scoff, and menacing, I say, of the sa- 
cred volume they would obliterate, it is a book of 
facts, as well authenticated as any heathen history 
— a book of miracles, incontestably avouched— a 
book of prophecy, confirmed by past as well as 
present fulfilment — a book of poetry, pure and nat- 
ural, and elevated even to inspiration — a book of 
morals, such as human wisdom never framed for 
the perfection of human happiness. Sir, I will abide 
by the precepts, admire the beauty, revere the 
mysteries, and, as far as in me lies, practice the 
mandates of this sacred volume ; and should the 
ridicule of earth and the blasphemy of hell assail 
me, I shall console myself by the contemplation of 
those blessed spirits, who, in the same holy cause, 
have toiled and shone and suffered in the " goodly 
fellowship of the saints" — in the " noble army of 
the martyrs" — in the society of the great and good 
and wise of every nation : if my sinfulness be not 
cleansed, and my darkness illuminated, at least my 
pretentionless submission may be excused : If I err 
with the luminaries I have chosen for my guides, I 
confess myself captivated by the loveliness of their 
34 



266 SPEECH BEFORE THE BRITISH 

observations. If you err, it is in an heavenly re- 
gion — if you wander, it is in the fields of light — if 
you aspire, it is at all events a glorious daring ; and 
rather than sink with infidelity intb the dust, I am 
content to cheat myself with their vision of eterni- 
ty. It may, indeed, be nothing but delusion, but 
then I err with the disciples of philosophy and of 
virtue — with men who have drunk deep at the foun- 
tain of human knowledge, but who dissolved not 
the pearl of their salvation in the draught : I err 
with Bacon, the great confidant of nature, fraught 
with all the learning of the past, and almost presci- 
ent of the future, yet too wise not to know his weak- 
ness, and too philosophic not to feel his ignorance ; 
I err with Milton, rising on an angel's wing to Hea- 
ven, and like the bird of morn, soaring out of light 
amid the music of his grateful piety ; I err with 
Locke, whose pure philosophy only- taught him to 
adore its source, whose warm love of genuine li- 
berty was never chilled into rebellion with its au- 
thor; I err with Newton, whose star-like spirit, 
shooting athwart the darkness of the sphere, too 
soon to re-ascend the home of his nativity ; I err 
with Franklin, the patriot of the world, the play- 
mate of the lightning, the philosopher of liberty, 
whose electric touch thrilled through the hemis- 
phere. With men like these, sir, I shall remain in 
error, nor shall I desert those errors, even for the 
drunken death-bed of a Paine, or the delirious war- 
hoop of the sinking fiend, who would erect his al- 
tar on the ruins of society. In my opinion it is dif- 
ficult to say, whether their tenets are more ludi- 
crous or more detestable. They will not obey the 
king or the prince, or the parliament, or the con- 
stitution ; but they will obey anarchy. They will 
not believe in the Prophets — in Moses — in Maho- 



AUXILIARY BIBLE SOCTIEY. 267 

met — in Christ; but they believe Tom Paine, 
With no government but confusion — no creed but 
scepticism, I believe in my soul they would abjure 
the one if it became legitimate, and rebel against 
the other if it was once established. Holding, my 
Lord, opinions such as these, I should consider my- 
self culpable if at such a crisis I did not declare 
them. A lover of my country, I yet draw a line be- 
tween patriotism and rebellion. A warm friend to 
liberty of conscience, I will not confound toleration 
with infidelity. With all its ambiguity, I shall die 
in the doctrines of the christian's faith ; and with 
all its errors, I am contented to live under the 
glorious safeguards of the British constitution. 



APPENDIX. 



ROBERT EMMETT. 

For the following sketch of the character and trial of this 
distinguished champion of liberty, we are indebted to Phillips' 
Recollections of Cur ran, a work of great merit, recently published. 
The speech of Mr. Emmett, delivered immediately before sen- 
tence of death, we have copied from another work. This has 
been given by his immediate friends, and may be considered 
more genuine than any that has been presented to the world by 
his enemies. 

Speaking of Ireland, Mr. Phillips says — 

After the dreadful tempest of 1798, the country 
seemed to have fallen into a natural repose. Go- 
vernment was beginning to relax in its severities — 
the Habeas Corpus act was again in operation — 
the Union had been carried, and this once kingdom 
was gradually sinking into the humility of a con- 
tented province. All of a sudden, the government 
unprepared, the people unsuspicious, and the whole 
social system apparently proceeding without im- 
pediment or apprehension, an insurrection broke 
out in Dublin, which was attended with some mel- 
ancholy, and at first threatened very serious con- 
sequences. At the head of this insurrection was 
Robert Emmett, a young gentleman of respectable 
family, interesting manners, and most extraordina- 
ry genius. He had been very intimate in Curran's 



APPENDIX. 269 

family, and was supposed to have had a peculiar 
interest in its happiness. To that intimacy he feel- 
ingly alluded afterwards on his trial when he said 
— ".For the public service I abandoned the wor- 
ship of another idol whom I adored in my soul." — 
It is remarkable enough, that some years before, 
his brother, Mr. Thomas Addis Emmett, had, with 
Doctor Mac Nevin and several other discontented 
characters, been deported to America, where he 
is now practising at the bar of New-York with em- 
inent success. He is a man of very resplendent ge- 
nius, and indeed it seemed to be hereditary in his 
family. His father was state physician, and his bro- 
ther Temple, who died at the age of thirty, had al- 
ready attained the very summit of his profession. 
But the person whose fate excited the most power- 
ful interest was the unfortunate Robert. He was 
but just twenty-three, had graduated in Trinity 
College, and was gifted with abilities and virtues 
which rendered him an object of universal esteem 
and admiration. Every one loved — every one re- 
spected him — his fate made an impression on the 
University which has not yet been obliterated. 
His mind was naturally melancholy and romantic — 
he had fed it from the pure fountain of classic lite- 
rature, and might be said to have lived, not so 
much in the scene around him as in the society of 
the illustrious and sainted dead. The poets of an 
tiquity were his companions — its patriots his mo- 
dels, and its republics his admiration. He had but 
just entered upon the world, full of the ardour which 
such studies might be supposed to have excited, 
and unhappily at a period in the history of his 
country, when such noble feelings were not only 
detrimental but dangerous. It is but an ungenerous 
loyalty which would not weep over the extinction 



270 APPENDIX. 

of such a spirit The irritation of the Union had 
but just subsided. The debates upon that occasion 
he had drank in with devotion, and doctrines were 
then promulgated by some of the ephemeral patri- 
ots of the day, well calculated to inflame minds less 
ardent than Robert Emmett's. Let it not be for- 
gotten by those who affect to despise his memory, 
that men, matured by experience, deeply read in 
the laws of their country, and venerated as the 
high priests of the constitution, had but two years 
before, vehemently, eloquently, and earnestly, in 
the very temple itself, proclaimed resistance to be 
a duty. Unhappily for him, his mind became as it 
were drunk with the delusions of the day, and he 
formed the wild idea of emancipating his country 
from her supposed thraldom by the sacrifice of his 
own personal fortune, and the instrumentality of a 
few desperate and undisciplined followers. On the 
23d day of July, 1803, this rebellion, if it can be 
called such, arose in Dublin ; and so unprepared 
was government for such an event, that it is an in- 
disputable fact, that there was not a single ball 
with which to supply the artillery. Indeed, had the 
deluded followers of Emmett common sense or 
common conduct, the castle of Dublin must have 
fallen into their possession ; and what fortunately 
ended in a petty insurrection, might have produced 
a renewal of the disastrous 98. Much depends up- 
on the success of the moment ; and there was no 
doubt, there were very many indolent or despond- 
ing malcontents, whom the surrender of that cita- 
del would have roused into activity. However, a 
very melancholy and calamitous occurrence is sup- 
posed at the moment to have diverted Emmett's 
mind from an object so important. Lord Kilwar- 
dcn, the then Chief Justice, the old and esteemed 



APPENDIX. 271 

friend of Mr. Curran, was returning from the coun- 
try, and had to pass through the very street of the 
insurrection. He was recognized — seized, and in- 
humanly murdered, against all the entreaties and 
commands of Emmett. This is supposed to have 
disgusted and debilitated him. He would hot wade 
through blood to liberty, and found, too late, that 
treason could not be restrained even by the au- 
thority it acknowledged. Lord Kilwarden died 
like a judicial hero. Covered with pike-wounds 
and fainting from loss of blood, his last words were, 
" Let no man perish in consequence of my death, 
but by the regular operation of the laws," — words 
which should be engraven in letters of gold upon 
his monument. Speaking of him afterwards, during 
the subsequent trials, Mr. Curran said, " It is im- 
possible for any man having a head or a heart to 
look at this infernal transaction without horror. I 
had known Lord Kilwarden for twenty years. No 
man possessed more strongly than he did two qua- 
lities — he was a lover of humanity and justice al- 
most to a weakness, if it can be a weakness." The 
result of this murder was the paralysis of the rebels, 
and the consequent arrest of Emmett. There was 
found in his depot a little paper in which was 
drawn up a sort of analysis of his own mind, and a 
supposition of the state in which it was likely to be 
in case his prospects ended in disappointment. It 
is an admirable portraiture of enthusiasm. 4i I have 
but little time," he says, " to look at the thousand 
difficulties which lie between me and the comple- 
tion of my projects. That those difficulties will 
likewise disappear, I have ardent, and, I trust, ra- 
tional hopes ; but if it is not to be the case, I thank 
God for having gifted me with a sanguine disposi- 
tion : to that disposition! run from reflection; and 



272 APPENDIX. 

if my hopes are without foundation — if a precipice 
is opening under my feet from which duty will not 
suffer me to run back, 1 am grateful for that san- 
guine disposition, which leads me to the brink and 
throws me down, while my eyes are still raised to 
that vision of happiness which my fancy formed in 
the air." On the 19th of September, 1803, he was 
brought to trial, and of course convicted. Indeed, 
his object appeared to be to shield his character 
rather from the imputation of blood than of rebel- 
lion; and it is but an act of justice to his memory, 
to say, that, so far as depended upon him, there 
was nothing of inhumanity imputable. Mr. Curran 
was, I believe, originally assigned him as counsel, 
but this arrangement was afterwards interrupted. 
Nothing could exceed the public anxiety to hear 
the trial: however, the audience was exclusively 
military — there was not a person in coloured clothes 
in the court-house. Emmett remained perfectly si- 
lent until asked by the court, in the usual form, 
what he had to say why sentence of death should 
not be pronounced on him according to law. The 
following is his speech upon that occasion : — 

Mr. Emmett. " What have I to say why sentence 
of death should not be pronounced on me according 
to law ? I have nothing to say that can alter your 
predetermination, nor that will become me to say 
with any view to the mitigation of that sentence 
which you are here to pronounce, and I must abide 
by. But I have that to say which interests me more 
than life, and which you have laboured (as was ne- 
cessarily your office in the present circumstance? 
of this oppressed country) to destroy. I have much 
to say why my reputation should be rescued from 
the load of false accusation and calumny which has 
been heaped upon it. 



APPENDIX. 273 

I do not imagine that, seated where you are, your 
minds can be so free from impurity as to receive the 
least impression from what I am going to utter. I 
have no hopes that I can anchor my character in 
the breast of a court constituted and trammeled as 
this is. I only wish, and it is the utmost I expect, 
that your Lordships may suffer it to float down your 
memories, untainted by the foul breath of prejudice, 
until it finds some more hospitable harbour to shel- 
ter it from the storms by which it is at present buf- 
feted. Were I only to suffer death, after being ad- 
judged guilty by your tribunal, I should bow in si- 
lence, and meet the fate that awaits me without a 
murmur; but the sentence of the law, which delivers 
my body to the executioner, will, through the min- 
istry of that law, labour, in its own vindication, to 
consign my character to obloquy — for there must 
be guilt somewhere; whether in the sentence of 
the court, or in the catastrophe, posterity must de- 
termine. A man in my situation has not only to en- 
counter the difficulties of fortune, and the force of 
power over minds which it has corrupted or subju- 
gated, but also the difficulties of established preju- 
dice. The man dies, but his memory lives. That 
mine may not perish, that it may live in the respect 
of my countrymen, 1 seize upon this opportunity to 
vindicate myself from some of the charges alleged 
against me. When my spirit shall be wafted to a 
more friendly port ; when my shade shall have 
joined the bands of those martyred heroes who 
have shed their blood on the scaffold and in the 
field, in defence of their country and of virtue — this 
is my hope — I wish that my memory and name may 
animate those who survive me ; while I look down 
with complacency on the destruction of that perfi- 
dious government which upholds its domination by 
35 



274 APPENDIX. 

blasphemy of the Most High — which displays it? 
power over men as over the beasts of the forest — 
which sets man upon his brother, and lifts his hand 
in the name of God against the throat of his fellow 
who believes or doubts a little more or a little less 
than the government standard — a government, 
which is steeled to barbarity by the cries of the 
orphans and the tears of the widows which it has 
made. [Here Lord Norbury interrupted Mr. Emmett, 
saying, that the wicked enthusiasts ivho felt as he did 
were not equal to the accomplishment of their wild de- 
signs^ 

I appeal to the immaculate God — I swear by the 
throne of Heaven, before which I must shortly ap- 
pear — by the blood of the murdered patriots who 
have gone before me — that my conduct has been 
through all this peril, and through all my purposes, 
governed only by the convictions which I have ut- 
tered, and by no other view than that of their cure, 
and the emancipation of my country from the su- 
perinhuman oppression under which she has so 
long and too patiently travailed ; and I confidently 
hope, that wild and chimerical as it may appear, 
there is still union and strength in Ireland suffi- 
cient to accomplish this noblest enterprise. Of this 
I speak with the confidence of intimate knowledge, 
and with the consolation that appertains to that 
confidence. Think not, my Lord, Isay this for the 
petty gratification of giving you a transitory unea- 
siness. A man who never yet raised his voice to 
assert a lie will not hazard his character with pos- 
terity by asserting a falsehood, on a subject so im- 
portant to his country, and on an occasion like 
this. Yes, my Lord, a man who does not wish to 
have his epitaph written until his country is libe- 
rated, will not leave a weapon in the power of en- 



APPENDIX. 275 

vy nor a pretence to impeach the probity which 
he means to preserve even in the grave to which 
tyranny consigns him. [Here he was again interrupt- 
ed by the judge.'] 

Again I say that what I have spoken was not in- 
tended for your Lordship, whose situation I com- 
miserate rather than envy — my expressions were 
for my countrymen ; if there is a true Irishman pre- 
sent, let my last words cheer him in the hour of af- 
fliction. [Here he was again interrupted by the cou?1.~\ 

I have always understood it to be the duty of a 
judge, when a prisoner has been convicted, to pro- 
nounce the sentence of the law ; I have also un- 
derstood that judges sometimes think it their duty 
to hear with patience, and to speak with humanity ; 
to exhort the victim of the laws, and to offer, with 
tender benignity, his opinions of the motives by 
which he was actuated in the crime of which he 
had been adjudged guilty — that a judge has thought 
it his duty so to have done, I have no doubt; but 
where is the boasted freedom of your institutions — 
where is the vaunted impartiality and clemency of 
your courts of justice, if an unfortunate prisov c, 
whom your policy, not pure justice, is about to de- 
liver into the hands of the executioner, is not suf- 
fered to explain his motives sincerely and truly, 
to vindicate the principles by which he was actu- 
ated ? 

My Lord, it may be a part of the system of angry 
justice to bow a man's mind by humiliation to the 
purposed ignominy of the scaffold ; but worse to 
me than the purposed shame, or the scaffold's ter- 
rors, would be the shame of such foul and unfound- 
ed imputations as have been laid against me in 
this court. You, my Lord, are a judge, I am the 
supposed culprit — I am a man, you are a man also 



276 APPENDIX 

—by a revolution of power, we might change pla- 
ces, though we never could change characters ; if 
I stand at the bar of this court, and dare not vin- 
dicate my character, what a farce is your justice ! 
If I stand at this bar, and dare not vindicate my 
character, how dare you calumniate it ? Does the 
sentence of death, which your unhallowed policy 
inflicts on my body, also condemn my tongue to 
silence, and my reputation to reproach ? Your ex- 
ecutioner may abridge the period of my existence ; 
but, while I exist, I shall not forbear to vindicate 
my character and motives from your aspersions ; 
and, as a man to whom fame is dearer than life, I 
will make the last use of that life in doing justice 
to that reputation which is to live after me, and 
which is the only legacy I can leave to those I ho- 
nour and love, and for whom I am proud to perish. 
As men, we must appear on the great day at one 
common tribunal, and it will then remain for the 
Searcher of all hearts to show a collective universe 
who was engaged in the most virtuous actions, or 
attached by the purest motives — my country's op- 
pressors, or — [Here he was interrupted, and told to lis- 
ten to the sentence of the law.] 

My Lord, shall a dying man be denied the legal 
privilege of exculpating himself, in the eyes of the 
community, of an undeserved reproach thrown up- 
on him during his trial, by charging him with am* 
bition, and attempting to cast away, for a paltry 
consideration, the liberties of his country ! Why 
did your Lordship insult me ? — or, rather, why in- 
sult justice in demanding of me why sentence of 
death should not be pronounced ? I know, my 
Lord, that form prescribes that you should ask the 
question ; the form also presumes a right of an- 
swering. This, no doubt, may be dispensed with — 



APPENDIX. 277 

and so might the whole ceremony of the trial, since 
sentence was already pronounced at the castle be- 
fore your jury was empannelled ; your Lordships 
are but the priests of the oracle — and I submit to 
the sacrifice ; but I insist on the whole of the forms. 
[Here the court desired him to proceed.] 

I am charged with being an emissary of France. 
An emissary of France ! and for what end ? It is 
alleged that I wished to sell the independence of 
my country ! And for what end ? Was this the ob- 
ject of my ambition ? And is this the mode by which 
a tribunal of justice reconciles contradictions ? No; 
I am no emissary — my ambition was to hold a place 
among the deliverers of my country — not in power, 
not in profit, but in the glory of the achievement ! 
Sell my country's independence to France ! and 
for what ? A change of masters ? No ; but for am- 
bition ! 

Oh, my country ! was it personal ambition that 
influenced me — had it been the soul of my actions, 
could I not, by my education and fortune, by the 
rank and consideration of my family, have placed 
myself amongst the proudest of your oppressors? 
My country was my idol — to it I sacrificed every 
selfish, every endearing sentiment, and for it I now 
offer up my life. Oh, God ! No, my Lord, I acted 
as an Irishman, determined on delivering my coun- 
try from the yoke of a foreign and unrelenting ty- 
ranny, and from the more galling yoke of a domes- 
tic faction, its joint partner and perpetrator in pa- 
tricide, whose rewards are the ignominy of existing 
with an exterior of splendour, and a consciousness 
of depravity. 

It was the wish of my heart to extricate my 
country from this doubly rivetted despotism. I 
wished to place her independence beyond the 



278 APPENDIX. 

reach of any power on earth. I wished to exalt her 
to that proud station in the world which Provi- 
dence had destined her to fill. 

Connextion with France was indeed intended — 
but only so far as mutual interest would sanction 
or require ; were they to assume any authority in- 
consistent with the purest independence, it would 
be the signal for their destruction- — we sought aid, 
and we sought it as we had assurances we should 
obtain it — as auxiliaries in war, and allies in peace. 

Were the French to come as invaders, or ene- 
mies uninvited by the wishes of the people, I should 
oppose them to the utmost of my strength. Yes, my 
countrymen, I should advise you to meet them on 
the beach, with a sword in one hand and a torch in 
the other. I would meet them with all trie de- 
structive fury of war, and I would animate my 
countrymen to immolate them in their boats before 
they had contaminated the soil of my country. If 
they succeeded in landing, and if forced to retire 
before superior discipline, I would dispute every 
inch of ground, raze every house, burn every blade 
of grass — the last spot in which the hope of free- 
dom should desert me, there would I hold, and the 
last intrenchment of liberty should be my grave. 
What I could not do myself, in my fall, I should 
leave as a last charge to my countrymen to accom- 
plish, because I should feel conscious that life, any 
more than death, is dishonourable when a foreign 
nation holds my country in subjection. 

But it was not as an enemy that the succours of 
France were to land ; 1 looked, indeed, for the as- 
sistance of France. I wished to prove to France 
and to the world, that Irishmen deserved to be as- 
sisted — that they were indignant of slavery, and 
wore ready to assert the independence and liberty 



APPENDIX, 279 

of their country. I wished to procure for my coun- 
try the guaranty which Washington procured for 
America. To procure an aid which would, by its 
example, be as important as its valour — disciplin- 
ed, gallant, pregnant with science and with expe- 
rience ; allies who would perceive the good, and, 
in our collision, polish the rough points of our cha- 
racter ; they would come to us as strangers and 
leave us as friends, after sharing in our perils, and 
elevating our destiny ; my objects were not to re- 
ceive new taskmasters, but to expel old tyrants — 
these were my views, and these only became Irish- 
men. It was for these ends I sought aid from France 
— because France, even as an enemy, could not be 
more implacable than the enemy already in tlip bo- 
som of my country ! [Here he was interrupted by the 
court.] 

I have been charged with that importance, in 
the efforts to emancipate my country, as to be con- 
sidered the key-stone of the combination of Irish- 
men, or, as your Lordship expressed it, " the life 
and blood of the conspiracy." You do me honour 
overmuch — you have given to the subaltern all the 
credit of a superior; there are men engaged in 
this conspiracy who are not only superior to me T 
but even to your own conceptions of yourself, my 
Lord — men before the splendour of whose genius 
and virtues I should bow with respectful deference, 
and who would think themselves dishonoured to 
be called your friends — who would not disgrace 

themselves by shaking your blood-stained hand 

[Here he was interrupted.] 

What, my Lord, shall you tell me, on the passage 
to that scaffold which the tyranny, of which you 
are only the intermediary executioner, has erected 
for my murder, that I am accountable for all the 



2&0 APPENDIX. 

blood that has and will be shed in this struggle of 
the oppressed against the oppressor — shall you tell 
me this, and must I be so very a slave as not to re- 
pel it? I, who fear not to approach the Omnipotent 
Judge, to answer for the conduct of my whole life 
— am I to be appalled and falsified by a mere rem- 
nant of mortality here — by you, too, who, if it were 
possible to collect all the innocent blood that you 
have shed, in your unhallowed ministry, in one 
great reservoir, your Lordship might swim in it ! 
[Here the judge interfered.] 

Let no man dare, when I am dead, to charge me 
with dishonour — let no man attaint my memory, by 
believing that I could engage in any cause but that 
of my country's liberty and independence — or that 
I could become the pliant minion of power in the 
oppression or the miseries of my countrymen ; the 
proclamation of the provisional government speaks 
for my views ; no inference can be tortured from 
it to countenance barbarity or debasement at home, 
or subjection, or humiliation, or treachery, from 
abroad. I would not have submitted to a foreign 
invader, for the same reason that I would resist 
the domestic oppressor. In the dignity of freedom 
I would have fought upon the threshold of my 
country, and its enemy should enter only by pass- 
ing over my lifeless corpse. And am I, who lived 
but for my country, who have subjected myself to 
the dangers of the jealous and watchful oppressor, 
and now to the bondage of the grave, only to give 
my countrymen their rights, and my country her 
independence, to be loaded with calumny, and not 
suffered to resent and repel it ? No ; God forbid \ 

If the spirits of the illustrious dead participate 
in the concerns and cares of those who were dear 
to them in this transitory life — Oh ! ever dear and 



APPENDIX. 281 

venerated shade of my departed father, look down 
with scrutiny upon the conduct of your suffering 
son, and see if I have even for a moment deviated 
from those principles of morality and patriotism 
which it was your care to instil ir.to my youthful 
mind, and for which I am now to offer up my life. 

My Lords, you seem impatient for the sacrifice 
— the blood for which you thirst is not congealed 
by the artificial terrors which surround your vic- 
tim ; it circulates warmly and unruffled through the 
channels which God created for noble purposes, 
but which you are bent to destroy for purposes so 
grievous, that they cry to Heaven. Be yet patient !* 
I have but a few words more to say. I am going 
to my cold and silent grave ; my lamp of life is 
nearly extinguished : my race is run : the grave 
opens to receive me, and I sink into its bosom. I 
have but one request to ask at my departure from 
this world ; it is the charity of its silence. Let no 
man write my epitaph ; for as no man who knows 
my motives dare now vindicate them, let not pr j ju- 
dice or ignorance asperse them. Let them and me 
repose in obscurity, and my tomb remain unin?cri- 
bed, until other times and other men can do justice 
to my character. When my country takes her place 
among the nations of the earth, then, and not till 
then, let my epitaph be written. 1 have done !" 

These were the list words which Robert Emmett 
ever spoke in public ; and these words deliberate- 
ly avowed and justified the conduct for which his 
life had been pronounced the forfeit Indeed, he 
does not appear to have been a young man upon 
whose mind adversity could produce any effect. 
He was buoyed up by a characteristic enthusiasm ; 
and this, tempered as it was by the utmost amenitv 
36 



282 APPENDIX. 

of manners, rendered him an object of love and ad- 
miration, even in his prison. Of his conduct there 
I have had, well authenticated, some very curious 
anecdotes. 

One day, previous to his trial, as the governor 
was going his rounds, he entered Emmett's room 
rather abruptly ; and observing a remarkable ex- 
pression in his countenance, he apologized for the 
interruption. He had a fork affixed to his little deal 
table, and appended to it there was a tress of hair. 
" You see," said he to the keeper, " how innocently 
I am occupied. This little tress has long been dear 
to me, and I am plaiting it to wear in my bosom on 
the day of my execution !" On the day of that fatal 
event, there was found sketched by his own hand, 
with a pen and ink, upon that very table, an admi- 
rable likeness of himself, the head severed from 
the body, which lay near it, surrounded by the 
scaffold, the axe, and all the frightful parapherna- 
lia of a high treason execution. What a strange 
union of tenderness, enthusiasm, and fortitude, do 
not the above traits of character exhibit ! His for- 
titude, indeed, never for an instant forsook him. 
On the night previous to his death he slept as 
soundly as ever ; and when the fatal morning dawn- 
ed he arose, knelt down and prayed, ordered some 
milk, which he drank, wrote two letters, (one to 
his brother in America, and the other to the secre- 
tary of state, inclosing it) and then desired the 
sheriffs to be informed that he was ready. When 
they came into his room, he said he had two re- 
quests to make — one, that his arms might be left 
as loose as possible, which was humanely and in- 
stantly acceded to. " I make the other," said he, 
u not under any idea that it can be granted, but 
that it may be held in remembrance that I have 



APPENDIX. 283 

made it—it is, that I may be permitted to die in 
my uniform."* This of course could not, be allow- 
ed ; and the request seemed to have had no other 
object than to show that he gloried in the cause 
for which he was to suffer. A remarkable example 
of his power both over himself and others occurred 
at this melancholy moment. He was passing out, 
attended by the sheriffs, and preceded by the exe- 
cutioner — in one of the passages stood the turnkey 
who had been personally assigned to him during 
his imprisonment: this poor fellow loved him in 
his heart, and the tears were streaming from his 
eyes in torrents. Emmett paused for a moment ; 
his hands were not at liberty — he kissed his cheek 
- — and the man, who had been for years the inmate 
of a dungeon, habituated to scenes of horror, and 
hardened against their operation, fell senseless at 
his feet. Before his eyes had opened again upon 
this world, those of the youthful sufferer had clos- 
ed on it for ever. Such is a brief sketch of the man 
who originated the last state trials in which Mr. 
Curran acted as an advocate. Upon his character, 
of course, different parties will pass different opin- 
ions. Here he suffered the death of a traitor — in 
America his memory is as that of a martyr, and a 
full length portrait of him, trampling on a crown, 
is one of their most popular sign-posts. Of his high 
honour Mr. Curran had perhaps even an extrava- 
gant opinion. Speaking of him to me one day, he 
said, " I would have believed the word of Emmett 
as soon as the oath of any one I ever knew." Our 
conversation originated in reference to some ex- 
pressions said to have fallen from him during his 
trial, reflecting on Mr. Plunket, who was at that 
time solicitor general. However, the fact is, that 

* The colour of the rebel uniform was green,- 



284 APPENDIX.. 

Mr. Plunket's enemies invented the whole story.— 
Emmett never, even by implication, made the allu- 
sion ; and I am very happy tiiat my minute inqui- 
ries on the subject enable me to add an humble 
tribute to the name of a man who is at once an or- 
nament to his profession and his country — a man 
whom Mr. Curran himself denominated the Irish 
Gylippus, "in whom," said he, " were concentrated 
all the energies and all the talents of the nation." 
It is quite wonderful with what malignant industry 
the enemies of integrity and genius circulated this 
calumny upon Mr. Plunket. But the Irish national 
aptitude for scandal has unfortunately now become 
naturalized into a proverb ! Very far is it from my 
intention to disobey the last request of Emmett, by 
attempting to place any inscription upon his tomb 
— that must await the pen of an impartial posteri- 
ty ; and to that posterity his fate will go, were there 
no other page to introduce rt than that of the in- 
spired author of Lalla Rookh, who was his friend 
and cotemporary in college, and who thus most 
beautifully alludes to him in his Irish Melodies : 

O breathe not his name ! let it steep in the shade 
Wh^re, cold and unhononred, his relics are laid \ 
Sad, 9'lent, and d irk, be the tears that we shed, 
As the night-dew that falls on the grass o'er his head. 

But the ni^ht-dew that falls, though in silence it weeps, 
Shall brighten with verdure the grave where he sleeps ; 
And the tear that we shed, though in secret it rolls,. 
Shall long keep his memory green in our souls. 



THE END. 



6 ' 



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